Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive 39

Log needed

Hey guyz. Please restore the history log recently-deleted of Category:Israelis of Ethiopian descent, it's required since this discussion contains links referring to <<diffs>> in the deleted category's versions. The cat itself is empty (we evacuated the content after the cat was "locked") and you may turn it into a redir to the non-locked page. Thankz Orrlingtalk 14:30, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Resolved! Thanx Orrlingtalk 01:15, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Assessments broken

moved to Template_talk:Assessments#Broken_for_set_nominations as not an admin issue. Rd232 (talk) 14:46, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Screenhots ?

Please check picture File:Juanita M.JPG and some other uploaders pictures, are those pictures taken from some screenshots, why there are conunter ?--Motopark (talk) 05:53, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done by Lymantria. Thanks for the heads up. Regards, -- ChrisiPK (Talk|Contribs) 09:29, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Concerns about COM:IDENT and children

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Further discussion of this issue should go to Commons:Requests for comment/images of identifiable people. INeverCry 03:26, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

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User:MaybeMaybeMaybe has used User:File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske) to upload a number of images of boyscouts from Flickr. Several of these images depict topless boys. File:DSCN3163 (6024773333).jpg, for example, shows a boy in what appears to be a pool changing room, so it is likely unacceptable per COM:IDENT. File:S7301533 (6024774145).jpg, File:S7301541a (6029278595).jpg, File:Boys - Water - Action (6024787437).jpg, File:S7301546a (6029279029).jpg, File:Instagram 010 (6025778840).jpg all appear to have been chosen from the Flickr account because they depict topless boys. File:S7301450 (6024773875).jpg is from the same series of uploads and shows the same boy from the changeroom, although it is outdoors and everyone is fully clothed so COM:IDENT is less clear. These children do not appear old enough to have given legal consent for the pictures to have been taken, yet COM:IDENT does not seem to take this into account. COM:IDENT should address this issue directly, these uploads should be deleted, and the user should be asked to stop uploading such images. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 06:20, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

And several images they have uploaded from the same stream also include halloween jack o'lanterns, so let me say that it is unhelpful to assume as to their motives. Needless to say, there are COM:IDENT issues in that they appear to have been taken in Germany, where permission will be required for all use. If you gather together a list of images in which IDENT may be a problem, and take them to COM:DR, the community will look at the images, and the photographer can also be contacted to find out if required permission was gained or not. It is entirely possible that these are family holiday shots. We shouldn't just delete images without looking at the bigger picture. russavia (talk) 11:25, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Our responsibility is ensuring that the images we accept on Commons are within our scope and acceptable under COM:IDENT. We have a situation here where an editor is using a mechanism to upload hundreds of images from Flickr which may not meet these criteria. It is not our responsibility to contact photographers to ensure that the correct permissions we received (although you are welcome to do that privately and have them documentation to OTRS). On the other hand, we should discourage mass upload of images which will end up being deleted. In addition to that, I have concerns that COM:IDENT does not adequately recognize the difference between adults (who can grant permission) and chidren (who are unable to grant permission in the sense required). Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:47, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Russavia threatens to archive this section (which you will note he started) if the images are not put up for deletion. Apparently he didn't bother to check, because the images mentioned in my original message were nominated for deletion soon after I posted. Now I am being threatened with a block because I am attempting to un-archive this section. There are issues regarding the bot uploads that were being discussed and I would like to finish them so that we can move forward with correcting the mechanisms that allowed this situation to happen. We're just going to have the same conversation elsewhere if we don't finish it here. Can someone please re-open this section? Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:01, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I think there are concerns when people are uploading photos of kids from flickr to commons, especially when those photos are featuring in fetish accounts on flickr. I note that the flickr account changed their permissions to ARR shortly after uploading these images but probably was unaware that the change only affects subsequent uploads. Looks like I'll need to go through the flickr accounts adding these images to adult and fetish images and start an account deletion review on flickr. John lilburne (talk) 22:15, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Suggestions

Suggestions:

1. a standard user message template for this type of IDENT situation (see others in Category:Message templates), to be linked from COM:IDENT.
2. some mention of COM:IDENT on upload forms - at least at Commons:Upload (which is where the "Upload a file" toolbox link goes). Ideally this message would point at a fairly easy to understand checklist version of IDENT, which despite some improvements is still a lot to digest, because it's intended as policy, not how-to.

Rd232 (talk) 17:27, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Good suggestions, but these particular uploads all used the Flickr upload bot - what guidance does a user see if using that facility? Is the facility restricted in any way? For example, can a user who repeatedly uploads duplicate images or images which are out of scope be barred from further use of the bot? Can a brand new user use the bot to upload dozens of Flickr-washed images? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:46, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

User:File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske) is just the upload username; the work is done by the Flickr2Commons tool on the toolserver. As so often the toolserver is out for the count, so I can't check what it looks like; but operator User:Magnus Manske is active so changes should be possible (eg to add the COM:IDENT guidance notice mentioned above). Blocking users from using it... well certainly possible in theory. Maybe it would be a good idea to prevent brand-new users from using it, too (requests can always be made onwiki to have someone else import files). Rd232 (talk) 18:10, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Update: Neither old nor new version of Flickr2Commons give any guidance or help links. The tools rely on COM:TUSC to link uploads to a Commons account; I'm not sure if this can be blocked (I don't even know for sure if it uploads from blocked accounts are prevented - I can only assume so, because it's such an obvious issue, but it's not written down anywhere obvious). I will ask Magnus Manske about possibilities. Rd232 (talk) 22:49, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

How do other wikipedias handle such issues? -Michael

Further discussion of this should go to Commons:Requests for comment/images of identifiable people I think. Rd232 (talk) 20:05, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Self-published books?

I can't find anything that specifically addresses this question: Was the Commons intended to be a repository for self-published books, such as this? Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:44, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

We host files, ehich need not be of pictures, we do host pdfs of historical texts, and though this is better presented, we host lecture notes:-pages with calculations-schematics and diagrams etc on behalf of wikiversity, its not in the right format, but we could suggest a transwiki to wikibooks, if the community decides against this one.--KTo288 (talk) 20:19, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that self published books are in the same category as personal art or personal images -- unless the author is notable or there is a a clear educational value to the book, it is out of scope. .     Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 23:03, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd be more concerned about opening up a free avenue of dissemination for people who don't want to pay the fees that on-demand publishers require. I would think that we could be overwhelmed with such books, which would not be a good thing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:20, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Looked up the author s. eva nessenius via google, and read parts of her text, it seems that her book is available from every on demand publisher going, its seems that she just wants to get her spin on planetary formation disseminated as far as possible, one bio says she is a biology and geology teacher and not a planetary scientist, I guess unless someone elsewhere finds a use for it this is spam, rather nicely presented spam, but spam none the less.--KTo288 (talk) 00:00, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

There are free avenues of dissemination; the Internet Archive is one. I can see why one might not want their work associated with the other user books uploaded to the Internet Archive, which is sort of the problem we have with unlimited uploading.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:13, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Change protected image

Please upload File:Wikipedia-logo-el-10.png, a celebrative logo for the 10 years of greek Wikipedia, as a new version on top of File:Wikipedia-logo-v2-el.png. [1] -Geraki ^T_L^G 13:23, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:12, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Same sandbox with both users

User:Jamvicar/Sandbox/Space Shuttle and User:Michael Barera/Sandbox/Space Shuttle, are those kind of sandboxies needed in Commons--Motopark (talk) 06:29, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

They were only created recently. Why don't you ask the users in question what they're doing? Rd232 (talk) 10:12, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I will ask from both--Motopark (talk) 10:17, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

no-FoP in Italy: huge list

I decided to occupy my time to list the no-FoP files in Italy. It has been a long and difficult work. The list (User:Raoli/Deletion requests/FoP Italy) needs to be reviewed by administrators.

I have read the conclusions of Commons:Requests for comment/Non-US Freedom of Panorama under US copyright law and I've found interesting these for Italy no-FoP case:

1. "We could try to be clearer about cases where FOP might appear to be an issue, but isn't. Tools like {{Copyright information}} and {{PD-US-architecture}} can be used. This is generally an area we can improve in, not just for FOP issues."
2. "Campaign to change US copyright laws (as individuals; or as a campaign organised outside Wikimedia. Not through Wikimedia or Commons.)."

About the first conclusion I try to explain and discuss the Italian no-FoP to Italian user of Wikipedia and I've learn the rules of copyright (in particular of Italian copyright) from Blackcat, the text itself, many pages of Commons, Wiki Loves Monuments Italia guide (1, 2, 3) and my personal lawyer.

About the second conclusion by way this discussion (in Italian) we've (me and other Italian users) decided to create various logos (in Italian) to protest against Italy no-fop. I think we may replace (after it.wiki consensus) all file deleted with one of them.

However, I intend to add other pictures to the list before starting deletions. In cases of "De minimis" I've covered the building under copyright in this manner. Thank you for support. :) Raoli ✉ (talk) 00:36, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Generally, I wouldn't cover up buildings under DM. Either it's DM and whether or not we cover it up doesn't matter, or it does matter and the image is a copyvio. Imagine if every single building had to be blacked out in File:Panorama La Défense.jpg. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:08, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I see this practise in Category:Censored by lack of FOP. Raoli ✉ (talk) 01:25, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the files there are generally illustrative examples, of subjects that have been the subject of legal decisions denying FoP. They're not meant to imply that we should be doing this on a routine basis. --Avenue (talk) 02:09, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I didn't know this until today. Raoli ✉ (talk) 17:23, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

A list of main and frequent cases of Italy no-Fop application

a building (museum)	a sculpture	an installation	an object	a train station
a state-owned building	a stadium	a hospital	a bridge	a church

And restaurants, post offices, skyscrapers, banks, universities, military buildings, services infrastructures, hotels, etc. too. I hope these examples serve to clarify rather than dividing. Raoli ✉ (talk) 18:01, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

You should notify the uploaders or file page watchers… --AVRS (talk) 16:15, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

You're right, but I'm waiting for the opinion of my lawyer. --Raoli ✉ (talk) 16:26, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Move request

ResolvedRillke^(q?) 18:26, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Please move File:Southern_Great_Petrel_(immature).jpg to Southern_Giant_Petrel_(immature).jpg. Barfbagger (talk) 18:16, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Please use the ‹Move› link or {{Rename}} in future and provide a valid reason. Thanks in advance. -- Rillke^(q?) 18:26, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Request change of username

I changed my username to عبد المؤمن on the Arabic wikipedia, but I read that I must do this on all other wikis individually. Could an administrator please change my username on here, and direct me to the page where I should do this on the English wikipedia, because I can't find where to request this. Thanks. --Moemin05 (talk) 16:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Admins aren't capable to do this. You should request that on Commons:Changing username. And this one is the request page for enwiki. Trijnstel_talk 19:13, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a million --Moemin05 (talk) 00:26, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

lots of different licenses: File:11-07-31-helsinki-by-RalfR-101.jpg

File:11-07-31-helsinki-by-RalfR-101.jpg shows a lot of different licenses. Does this combination of GNU-FDL copyleft and cc-nc-nd license make sense? Doesn't the copyleft license make the cc-nc-nd license void? Or vice versa? Is this ok on commons? --ALE! ¿…? 07:54, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

No. They are different licenses. For example, if you want to use a GFDL in print, you can do so commercially, but you must print the entire text of the license. However, if you use the CC-NC-CD, then you can just have a single tagline mentioning the author and the license, but can't use it commercially or create derivatives. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:02, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Ich habe den Hochlader informiert. Er spricht aber anscheinend kein Englisch. Es wäre daher sinnvoll, die Diskussion auf Deutsch zu führen. Ich übersetze daher mal kurz was oben steht: "File:11-07-31-helsinki-by-RalfR-101.jpg hat eine Reihe von verschiedenen Lizenzen. Ergibt diese Kombination von GNU-FDL, copyleft und cc-nc-nd Sinn? Macht nicht copyleft die cc-nc-nd-Lizenz ungültig? Oder umgekehrt? Ist das ok auf Commons?" --ALE! ¿…? 08:04, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

(ec) It is perfectly ok on Commons to combine as many licenses as you like as long at least one free license (per COM:L) is provided. {{GFDL-1.2}} and {{FAL}} are considered as free licenses, even if they are not the most convenient in case of a reuse. The CC-by-nc-nd-3.0 license, if given alone, would not be ok but is acceptable in combination with other free licenses. A combination of licenses is never conflicting as any reuser has to chose exactly one of these licenses. --AFBorchert (talk) 08:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Again, there is no issue with the image. An uploader is allowed to choose whatever licenses he wants. A GFDL is not a strict superset of the permissions of CC-NC-ND; it does not allow republication without either reprinting the license or including a full hyperlinked URL to the license. In fact, even within the same license, CC-BY-SA is not a strict superset of the permissions of CC-BY-NC-SA; it does not allow derivative works to be licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:11, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I've added {{Multi-license}}, which linked to Commons:Multi-licensing. Rd232 (talk) 12:55, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Diese Diskussion kommt regelmäßig alle paar Wochen auf. Und die Antwort ist immer die gleiche, wie auch bei meiner Urheberangabe. Komischerweise kommt sowas immer von Mitarbeitern hier, die Nachnutzer begreifen es offenbar. Seit ich die NC dabeihabe, nutzen Studenten, Schulen und Unis weiter, ohne mich jedesmal zu fragen. Ziel also erreicht. Und die anderen: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Ralf_Roletschek/B%C3%BCcher - da ist vor allem 2012 interessant, nach Ausbau der Lizenz. --Ralf Roleček 13:28, 4 December 2012 (UTC) Der alte Spruch scheint zu stimmen, um auf Commons Admin zu sein, braucht man weder Ahnung von Lizenzen noch von Bildrechten zu haben (nicht von mir)....

<reinquetsch>Und für dumme Sprüche braucht man auch keine Lizenz, wie man sieht... --ALE! ¿…? 08:46, 5 December 2012 (UTC)</reinquetsch>

Ich sehe schwarze Wolken aufziehen. Woher kommen die nur… -- Rillke^(q?) 14:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Ich habe sie grad weggepustet :-) --Ralf Roleček 16:07, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Es koennte helfen, wenn du {{Multi-license}} zu User:Ralf Roletschek/Lizenz2 hinzufuegen wuerdest. Rd232 (talk) 18:29, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Hab ich grad gemacht, den Baustein kannte ich bisher nicht. --Ralf Roleček 19:03, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Es ist bei Deinen Lizenzangaben meiner Meinung nach immer noch nicht ausreichend klar, welche Lizenz für welche Zwecke benutzt werden sollen. Zum Beispiel die copyleft-Lizenz: Für welche Zwecke ist die gedacht? --ALE! ¿…? 08:46, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Hier ist eindeutig der falsche Platz für diese Diskussion. Es liegt im Ermessen des Hochladers die Lizenzauswahl zu tätigen, von denen mindestens eine von Wikimedia Commons als ausreichend frei angesehen wird; Wenn Du Fragen dazu hast warum der Nutzer eine bestimmte Kombination wählt, kannst Du das mit dem Nutzer klären.

PS Wenn Du die Artlibre Lizenz ({{FAL}}) mit „copyleft lizenz“ meinst, ist wohl im Vergleich zur {{GFDL-1.2}} der folgende Satz von Entscheidung: „oder genaue Hinweise zu geben, wo man die Lizenz finden kann“. Auch sollte man bedenken, dass verschiedene Lizenzen in verschiedenen Kreisen oder Ländern populärer sind, als andere. Eine Mehrfachlizenzierung macht auf Commons, das weltweit genutzt wird, definitiv Sinn. -- Rillke^(q?) 15:30, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

please delete

Resolved

--Ezarateesteban 23:42, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

see User talk:NoslenDesign and history, please delete out of scope page.--Motopark (talk) 19:35, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Gary Berkovich

• Dear administrators,

The files which are listed below I donated to the Commons. But they were deleted. I resubmitted them and sent a following email to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org

I hereby affirm that I, Gary Berkovich am the creator and/or sole owner of the exclusive copyright of

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GB_2.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GB_14.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GB_15-A.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:GB_19.jpg

I agree to publish that work under the free license "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0" (unported) and GNU Free Documentation License (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts).] I acknowledge that by doing so I grant anyone the right to use the work in a commercial product or otherwise, and to modify it according to their needs, provided that they abide by the terms of the license and any other applicable laws. I am aware that this agreement is not limited to Wikipedia or related sites. I am aware that I always retain copyright of my work, and retain the right to be attributed in accordance with the license chosen. Modifications others make to the work will not be claimed to have been made by me. I am aware that the free license only concerns copyright, and I reserve the option to take action against anyone who uses this work in a libelous way, or in violation of personality rights, trademark restrictions, etc. I acknowledge that I cannot withdraw this agreement, and that the work may or may not be kept permanently on a Wikimedia project.

Gary Berkovich The copyright-holder

May I expect my files to be restored?

Thank you,

Gary Berkovich — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gary Berkovich (talk • contribs) 19:58, 29 November 2012‎ (UTC)

 Restored King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 21:16, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

So you have your own satellite? —LX (talk, contribs) 07:08, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Am I the only one who finds this odd? —LX (talk, contribs) 06:31, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

From looking at his article, it would seem that he/his firm had a hand in designing the structure in this image. The idea that he/his firm were able to get satellite images of a USSR Government research building that they were involved in designing/building seems plausible. Of course the OTRS ticket should elucidate this. It seems to have been found sufficient. INeverCry 07:05, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

That's not what the file description claims. The supposedly verified file description claims that it's his own work and that he personally is the author. Also, getting a copy of an image of course does not in any way mean that one is automatically the copyright holder. —LX (talk, contribs) 12:11, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I've asked King of Hearts to take another look at this. INeverCry 19:06, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

The OTRS does not mention satellite imagery. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:33, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

File:Licensing tutorial ko temp.svg

This file is a new version(Font optimized(OFL Font), Error fixed) of File:Licensing tutorial ko.svg, but new upload is protected. so, Please move(overwrite) File:Licensing tutorial ko temp.svg to File:Licensing tutorial ko.svg. --Dynamic-Labor☭(Talk) 12:52, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:37, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Admin attention required

Howdy all. I just quashed Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Snowflake on the English wiki, and that "article" (pure spam) included a bunch of images--File:Sf-logo-4.jpg, File:2012-12-04 11.54.10 pm.jpg, File:2012-12-04 11.54.20 pm.jpg, and File:2012-12-04 11.54.29 pm.jpg. These files are not currently used anywhere else. I'm sure your rules are different, but I'd like to point out that their purpose was commercial and I cannot tell if they are uploaded with the proper license. If I am misreading your policy, sorry (I'm not actually reading any policy); act as you see fit. Happy days, Drmies (talk) 16:14, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done Thanks. .     Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 16:24, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks a bunch, James. Drmies (talk) 17:43, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

User talk:Psujauddin

See talk page history and edits, can somebody tell more about rules.--Motopark (talk) 17:01, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Non-English categories

There is a Category:Dozhinki. Anonymous 46.174.26.245 (talk · contribs) geolocated in Poland creates categories named in local language, ex. Category:Okrężne or Category:Obžinký, and moves the images from basic category into those local-named. I tried to convert those local-named ones into redirects [2], yet he opposes. The warning was made twice from two Commons users at User talk:46.174.26.245. Please take care of this case. Thank you.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 19:20, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

The problem persists. User Odder (talk · contribs) restores the categories named in Polish, so he states that categories may be named in local languages. In previous discussions user Foroa (talk · contribs) explained there is no place at Commons for the categories named in local languages. Who is right at last? Are Russian categories also allowed on Commons at last?--PereslavlFoto (talk) 11:04, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Dear PereslavlFoto, it's a misunderstanding that we don't accept non-English name. Here at Commons we accept the name most commonly used in English. For rather obscure places (from an English point of view) this might be the local Polish name and not the Russian transliteration.

This will sometimes result in conflicting names. In this case you should discus this on Category talk:Dozhinki and not here. No need for admin intervention. We're all nice people so I'm sure you can work this out in a good conversation. Multichill (talk) 11:15, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

The specific question in this case was, do we use Polish name or English name. Polish people insist to use Polish name Dożynki Jasnogórskie‎ instead of English name Dozhinki Jasnogurskie.--PereslavlFoto (talk) 11:33, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

PereslavlFoto, could you please open up a discussion on VP, or perhaps work with other editors to reactivate Commons:Naming_categories discussion. This doesn't really belong on the admin noticeboard as it doesn't require admin intervention so-to-speak. As an aside, whilst the Polish name likely does not comply with policy, Dozhinki Jasnogurskie also does not comply with policy, being the Latinised Russian transliteration of the term, which is Jasna Góra Harvest Festival in English. Please open up discussion elsewhere as noted above. Cheers russavia (talk) 11:46, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

These contributions?

Here. I'm not sure that these can really be seen as within scope but other opinions would be good. Thanks --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:41, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

It's pretty close to raw text, with just a black border added, so it seems out of scope to me. --Avenue (talk) 15:02, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Marked for speedy deletion. Commons shouldn't be misused as a soapbox. --Túrelio (talk) 16:47, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks both - gone now. Regards --Herby ^{talk thyme} 17:03, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

LIFE template source parameter NOT WORKING

The source parameter for Template:LIFE doesn't seem to work. On this image [3] for an example, clicking on the filename link " 96ad5a9a5c94664e" takes me to here, an error page. It's suppose to take me to [4]. The same problem is happening for the template on this image and many more. I'm guessing the problem is the template parameter rather than everyone putting in the wrong filename. This is kinda a problem, because we need to be able to verify info, and we can't really do that without the source. --Futuretrillionaire (talk) 14:42, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Changed the template. -- Asclepias (talk) 16:07, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Awesome! Thanks :D --Futuretrillionaire (talk) 16:13, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Special:SpecialPages

Normally, Maintenance reports in Special:SpecialPages are updated once every 3 days. The last update happened on 4 November. Any idea

• Why they haven't be updated since the 4th of November ?
• If they could be updated once per 24 hours ? --Foroa (talk) 15:22, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

C an image of what one could understand by "maintenance". --Foroa (talk) 07:40, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Broken since 8 days now, information is 11 days old; it looks as if data in search database is more than 7 days old. Search still returns several times per day zero results without warnings; generally a second our third retry after a few seconds works. --Foroa (talk) 17:45, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Report and search database back to normal this morning. --Foroa (talk) 14:31, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Broken again since 6 days now, information is 9 days old. Search database probably not updated since 9 days. Search tool becomes more and more unreliable. --Foroa (talk) 17:34, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Back to normal since 26 November. --Foroa (talk) 05:58, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Broken again since 10 days now, information is 13 days old. Search database probably not updated since 10 days. Search tool seems to be a bit more reliable, but still returns not found results without reason. --Foroa (talk) 13:48, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Back to normal since 9 December. --Foroa (talk) 14:17, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Copyrights of Iranian weaponry images

In en-wiki several articles relating to Iranian weaponry have been semi-protected after infobox image changes: en:Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Iranian weaponry article infobox image sizes. Some of the editors involved have suspicous uploads in Commons:

• File:Toophan 5.jpg (by Jkauhh (talk · contribs)) and File:Al toophan.jpg (by Thathgar (talk · contribs) have ISNA watermarks
• File:The igla.jpg (by Akarinahk (talk · contribs)) is probably web grab from [5]
• File:G3 in iran.jpg (by Sakahalin (talk · contribs)) has multiple copies in the web
• File:The pk machinegun.jpg (by Lkaria (talk · contribs)) looks like it was taken from [6]

Could an admin check these? MKFI (talk) 17:02, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I've deleted the last three files for being obvious copyvios, and I have nominated the first two with ISNA watermarks for deletion. Techman224^Talk 00:24, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

File request for protecting reuploading.

This image: File.High pressure area is in need of protection from re-uploading, and "upload new version of the file" due to persistent reversions to a bad quality image. Comments please, thank you.--Earth100 (talk) 09:35, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

O.k., to prevent further conflict I have temp-protected the image for 1 week. Please use this time for discussion with the other user, ideally on the talkpage of the image and based on our policy Commons:Overwriting existing files. --Túrelio (talk) 10:14, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

User:Deonis 2012 - Consistent edit-warring and copyright violations

This user is consistently in edit-warring on Syria related files. (See the file histories for File:Syria southern front.svg and File:Battle of Aleppo map.svg for evidence) He refuses to communicate via talk pages. He has done similar things on Wikipedia, and he has been warned multiple times there, leading to a temporary block. He has been warned on Commons also by an admin, but he doesn't seem to listen. He has also violated copyrights by uploading these files File:-Battle of Aleppo map.svg and File:-Battle of Aleppo map.png (which are duplicates of my work File:Battle of Aleppo map.svg) and claiming he made it. I believe that this user needs to be temporarily banned from Commons. --Futuretrillionaire (talk) 15:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes and everytime we make changes on commons he reverts the changes. He looks biased towards regime and he dosen't have a good english. He copies old revisions of maps and pretends it's new. Amedjay (talk) 15:39, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

• Being biased towards the Bashar al-Assad government is not an argument for blocking. It's probably more difficult to get editors tending to have that bias rather than editors having the opposite bias, so NPOV means that based on this argument alone, Deonis 2012 would be the sort of editor who is needed to help in NPOV.
• Having poor English is not an argument against participation in English-language WMF projects, and Commons IMHO should be especially open to linguistic diversity. However, having poor English does not allow copyright violation or edit-warring. It does not justify failing to talk on talk pages either. Boud (talk) 23:04, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Poor English on an English-language project can in drastic cases lead to sanction on grounds of incompetence, but you are correct in saying that Commons should have more linguistic openness. In fact, it does, and it is one of the central tenets of collaboration here. The issue is that Deonis's lack of understanding of how things work on these projects seems to A) not be language-bound per se and B) not show any signs of improvement despite numerous reminders and warnings. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 04:13, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

This user has to be block indefinitely for his edit warring and his vandalism of images and maps based on syrian regime media,not on neutral sources and he is consistently edit warring and I have warned him several times of edit warring,and he doesn't listen Alhanuty (talk) 15:44, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Deonis 2012's repeated copyright violations on the en.Wikipedia led to:

• a 72-hour block starting 2 Dec 2012
• an indefinite block starting 5 Dec 2012, since he copyvio'd almost immediately following the end of the 72-hour block.

The only alternative to blocking on Commons that I see is if someone can find a way to communicate with him (in English or Russian). He appears to be unaware of the existence of edit summaries and talk pages and despite being blocked on en.Wikipedia, does not seem to have been motivated to start learning about how the WMF wikis function sociologically, beyond the technical aspects of direct editing of articles and uploading of files to Commons. I'm sure the Russian-language Wikipedia and Commons guidelines and help pages explain more or less the same info as in English, at least for things as fundamental as talk pages, edit summaries, copyright violation, and reverts/edit-warring. Boud (talk) 23:04, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

His activities on ru-wiki don't inspire confidence, either. He has shown no knowledge of how talkpages work there, even in his native language. Additionally, looking at his talkpage we see a series of increasingly frustrated messages from another user regarding similarly uncommunicative and problematic behaviour. I'm unsure whether or not it is possible to get him to understand things, in Russian or in English. ~~ Lothar von Richthofen (talk) 01:15, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Blocked for (at least) one week. Let's see what changes afterwards. --Denniss (talk) 11:36, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Problems with uploaded PDF files

Hello to all. I have just cleaned up the main Category:PDF files and I noticed a lot of files, which according to me need to be deleted. In the main category, there are few files that need to be deleted, but the main problem are the files in the Category:PDF files in English and Category:PDF files in Spanish. Both of them contain PDF files that are just useless and I assume they are part of some school or university project somewhere in Latin America. Since I am not quite familiar with the reasons for deletion of files, can some of the admins check these categories? Also, the other subcategories contain "weird" PDF files. Best--Никола ^{Стоіаноски} 21:10, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

File:Jakutsoczort.jpg

Something's broken here. According to the log, it was deleted as a file description page without media in 2010, but instead it's ended up as a media file with no file description. Since it's a non-free photo grabbed from Google just like the rest of the uploader's "contributions", it should be deleted if possible. —LX (talk, contribs) 13:19, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Seems to have been the result of a precursor of the recent deletion bug. Restored and then successfully deleted. --Túrelio (talk) 13:27, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Having problems with a corrupted image

Link to original discussion at en.wp Graphic lab: Help the colorblind

I requested that File:RomanEmpire 117.svg be changed, and Begoon responded by uploading the changes at File:RomanEmpire 117 recoloured.svg. This image is corrupted (it won't display at 800px, although other resolutions work fine), so he uploaded reuploaded them as File:RomanEmpire 117 recoloured 2.svg. Since it's just a quality improvement of the original, he's uploaded version 2 on top of the original. That all being said, could someone delete recoloured.svg and histmerge recoloured 2 with the original? I'm envisioning deleting recoloured 2, restoring just the latest file revisions, moving them on top of the original, and deleting the versions of the original image that were uploaded today. Nyttend (talk) 19:50, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, when I click on the 800 x xyz Pixel version of all 3 files, I can see a perfectly looking image (browser: Chrome). --Túrelio (talk) 19:53, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Concur with Nyttend regarding histmerge/deletions. I still don't see the image on the 'recoloured' file page, and this: [7] gives an error. Replace 800 in that url with anything else sensible and it works - 799, 801, 1000 etc...

An additional problem I'm having is that the new version won't show up for me at File:RomanEmpire 117.svg, and no amount of purging/refreshing seems to help. - what's really bizarre is that this request for an 800px thumbnail works ok: [8] but the file page, which "wants" exactly that size, doesn't show the new version for me. None of the 4 "Try this" links on the file page show the correct version either. The thumbnails in the file history look odd, too - the most recent one always shows the "old" version - probably because that's what "current version" is showing. It all looks like caching issues, but has me stumped. (Chrome here too, but checked Firefox.) It should be noted that the only changes made to the long-standing original file were search/replace alterations to HTML colour values in a text editor. nb: the correct and desired version should be pink/green/grey as per the key in the description at File:RomanEmpire 117.svg, in case anyone is as confused as me...Begoon - talk 23:48, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Update: I reuploaded the file to File:RomanEmpire 117.svg today, and after purging, and reloading this thumbnail a few more times the new image now shows up on the file page. I couldn't purge/refresh the couple of articles I tried to get it to update in, but I only just reuploaded, so this may just need time? In some tests, if I add it to this sandbox at a size like 200px, which is likely to have a cached thumbnail, I get the old version, but if I use an "odd" size like 202px, this seems to force a new thumbnail generation and works fine. Begoon - talk 04:21, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

File:JAR.jpg

Hi there,

Someone incorrectly loaded a completely different image on top of the original one for that file. I have reverted to the original upload, but the newer (middle) picture is a probable copyvio and should be removed complete.

Please do not remove the original/reverted image, just the one that went on top of it. Thank you. Ubcule (talk) 21:53, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

 Not done The original upload is also a copyvio. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:54, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Removal of author name from file history

Hi, can somebody please remove my name from the file history sections of the following wikimedia pages and replace with my screen name 'Alamo25'. I have since removed my name from the wikipedia versions and replaced with my screen name, but these versions were migrated before then.

Location in text: Information |Description={{en|N.....e H....r (dots replacing name so this page doesn't become indexed as well.

Images effected: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rooty_Hill_RSL.JPG http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rooty_Hill,_New_South_Wales.JPG http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Imperial_Hotel.JPG

Many thanks.

Hmm, as this refers to information in the upload-log, IMO this will require a version deletion, which would then also remove the upload-date from the log. The latter could become a "forensic" problem, in case you have to provide proof at which time your image was published/uploaded to Commons. --Túrelio (talk) 09:23, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I can reupload the images to commons? So its not possible for an admin to do a HTML edit on the 'Comments' part of the File History. I don't need any other information to change. --Alamo25

2) No, as far as I know.

1) Sure. However, to avoid problems on the pages where the images are used, it might be better if you re-upload the identical image over each of these images as "new version". But don't forget to include the full description entry (which you can simply copy from the existing one). Thereafter, the initially uploaded version (included the "bad" upload-log) could be either deleted or hidden. --Túrelio (talk) 09:39, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

It would seem to me that reuploading (following Túrelio's directions) followed by the use of RevDel to hide only the username of the original uploader would do all that Alamo wants. Nyttend (talk) 05:00, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Improved image

Please replace improved image http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Om_beach_Gokarna.JPG with http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Om_beach_Gokarna2.JPG I can not do this because: "You can't upload a new version because your account is too new.". But my account is older than 7 years… — Preceding unsigned comment added by 3rdBIT (talk • contribs) 14:33, 11 December 2012‎ (UTC)

Your account on Commons was created today, as you can see there. -- Asclepias (talk) 15:30, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

You may well have had your account for 7 years on other Wikimedia sites, but it will only be created on Commons the first time you log in here. So you'll need to wait a few days (? AFAIR ?) before you can replace existing files. Rd232 (talk) 12:07, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

3 days, you would have to wait. But  Done. -- Rillke^(q?) 14:04, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Time to permanently block user account?

This user ("Mr.Sticker") has repeatedly uploaded copyvios over a period of more than a year and has already been warned and given temporary blocks on more than one occasion.

The most recent one in April is a final warning, saying "This user has been blocked for continuing to upload copyright violations after warnings and a previous block. You may well be blocked indefinitely next."

Despite this, the user has subsequently uploaded material on at least four occasions after this and been warned about it with no apparent effect. (I've just noticed another blatant copyvio with a copyrighted stock photo from November).

Some of the user's images do appear to be his/her own, due to the consistent EXIF data, so perhaps we don't need to delete them, but it's obviously your decision(s) whether to block him/her permanently. Ubcule (talk) 19:50, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

 Blocked indefinitely. INeverCry 21:06, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Experimental Flickr uploading turned on for admins

Please help test out the new experimental Flickr uploading. If you go to Special:UploadWizard and click on "Add images from Flickr", you should be able to put in a URL for an image on Flickr or for an entire photoset. If you use a photoset URL you will then get an interface to choose which freely-licensed images from the photoset you want to upload. UploadWizard should then handle verifying the licenses and importing the images and metadata. If you notice any bugs, please file them in Bugzilla. You can also leave feedback on this feature by clicking the 'Leave Feedback' link in UploadWizard. Currently the tool does not suggest categories, but we'll try to add this feature some time in the future. Photoset imports are currently limited to 50 images. Kaldari (talk) 01:02, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Are the bugs that were noted last time around fixed or are those still there? --Rosenzweig τ 04:05, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

They should all be fixed except for the category suggestion one. Well, and there's still no software-based Flickr blacklisting. But those are both feature requests rather than bugs per se. Kaldari (talk) 05:01, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi Kaldari, as an experienced contributor who happens to have written my own Flickr upload script along with a Flickr review script, and used these, along with a couple of other upload tools, to upload many thousands of Flickr images, plus I'm on the GLAMtool steering group with Europeana and so have an insight into the future of institutional mass upload tools, any chance that I can have access to try out this upload facility as a non-admin? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 07:06, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the admin restriction is quite low-level and offers no granular control, i.e. the 'upload_by_url' permission is currently only assigned to the sysop group, so even if I wrote in a backdoor for you to access the interface, the upload itself would fail. My hope is that if the feature is deemed useful enough and relatively bug-free during this testing period, the community will support opening it up to more users. If you just want to try out the feature, rather than using it for actual Commons uploads, it is currently available to all users on test.wiki and test2.wiki. Kaldari (talk) 09:17, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I'll leave it to the admins then, there's plenty of other places where I can add value. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 09:23, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, we had community consensus to assign the upload_by_url right to the image-reviewer group: Commons:Village pump/Proposals/Archive/2012/03#Right-change: Image reviewers. As far as I can see someone has just to file a bug. -- Rillke^(q?) 12:50, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Sure, just file a bug for it and I'll see about getting that changed. Kaldari (talk) 18:35, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done: bugzilla:42921 and it seems like a lot of people already noticed it. ;) Trijnstel_talk 20:48, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

And it's  fixed: see here and on Special:ListGroupRights. Trijnstel_talk 22:02, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Kaldari! This is very exciting.--ragesoss (talk) 14:48, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/DudeTwo_IV

Seems to intested about Adobe logos and created after then than other Adobe uploaders has been blocked--Motopark (talk) 08:15, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

You could probably ask for a check user. --PierreSelim (talk) 09:06, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Definitely Confirmed. The last five sockpuppets are (all blocked and no new undiscovered socks afaics):

• DudeTwo (talk · contribs)
• DudeTwo II (talk · contribs)
• DudeTwo III (talk · contribs)
• DudeTwo IV (talk · contribs)
• Mutemaxe (talk · contribs)

Kind regards, Trijnstel_talk 22:12, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Different timezones?

Hi guyz! :] There’s that notice I lately get when reaching for my contribs log stating that the recent block on my wiki account is due "21:00, 3 December 2012 ...". This, while the notice on the initial block 3 days ago came at 17:34 if I'm getting it right and I didn’t see any notification anywhere as to this change so some strange bug has possibly affected the technical terms of my username creating a delay of 3.5 hours in the unblocking… Please be thus sure to immeduately fix this so that we can perform the needed edits from within the major account and not from outside of it ;-), Thanx Orrlingtalk 19:51, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

The block currently in place expires at 7:17UTC (GMT) on 14 December. Note that all times are GMT rather than anyone's local time. Note also that the effective time is in the block log, not the time you were notified.

I don't entirely understand

"so that we can perform the needed edits from within the major account and not from outside of it"

but it appears to say that you will perform "needed edits" from another account if Orrling is blocked. Evading a block is a significant violation of our rules and would be met by a much longer block. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 12:00, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Hahahah! OMG –

1. Threating or “warning” is a (proven) very worthless way to speak with me. On the other hand reforming it can make you happier, and also listened to;

2. You seem to have totally missed the context and orientation of the message you were responding to, obviously I was referring to the block that ended 3 December 2012 17:34 (or was said to end that time and yet from some technical reason has lengthened in 3.5 hours) and not to the current one. You may want to notice time stamps.

:-O Orrlingtalk 11:04, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I see that you have signed the Orrling account name to edits you have made from an IP address. That is a violation of our rules. Don't do it again. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 18:10, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Multiple files not updating! Temporary bug?

File:Battle of Aleppo map.svg and File:Syrian National Coalition recognition.svg are becoming very buggy for some reason. Other editors and I have tried to upload updated versions of the maps, but the files won't change. What's going on? Can someone help? --Futuretrillionaire (talk) 17:31, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps it is related to Commons:Village pump#Problem with new version of image. -- Rillke^(q?) 13:57, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

mass deletion

Please delete uploads of Special:Contributions/Mishellwoohoo as copyvio.--Motopark (talk) 19:27, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done --Sreejith K (talk) 19:35, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Just to let folk know

Spotting a couple of users who have used page moving to spam Commons in the past few hours and seeing the same approach on other wikis recently I'm adjusting the page move filter (60). The idea that new users will find any real need to make multiple moves so quickly seems unlikely to me and I would rather start the prevention before the problem. I realise few folk will find this interesting but this message is for those of you who do :) and thanks for the work. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:09, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Yep; I'm one of them. ;) Thanks for adjusting the filter. Hopefully it'll work. Trijnstel_talk 22:34, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

File:Beyonce2012.jpg

This is a non-free image and needs to be deleted. Oz91 (talk) 23:51, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done by User:Denniss. Next time please use {{Copyvio}} template. --Sreejith K (talk) 04:46, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

User:Deivismaster

Given User:Deivismaster's recent uploads, I think someone familiar with the users language should review and delete their uploads, I have a high suspicion that most if not all of the user's uploads are copyvios (where the user claims own work) Werieth (talk) 04:09, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

File:HK Tram N.o 3.jpg

The file is protected (today's plwiki-mainpage protection) but I think there should be more that Chinese description. Could anyone (admin) add

{{en|China (Hong Kong): Hong Kong tram #3}}
{{pl|Chiny (Hong Kong): tramwaj piętrowy #3}}

please? Kaligula (talk) 15:30, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done Yarl ✉ 16:27, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

User_talk:Pieter_Kuiper#Copyright_violation_by_admin_INeverCry

Should we really be allowing gross personal attacks like this here? Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:32, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Should we really be claiming "gross personal attacks" without quoting, when it isn't obvious what you mean? Rd232 (talk) 01:15, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I linked to the section. The only other comment in that section is by you, after I linked it. Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:48, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

And which bit do you think is (grossly) personal? The "to protect poor Fæ" or "he uploaded copyright violations himself"? --99of9 (talk) 03:47, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

The accusations of bad faith and conspiracy theorizing? Adam Cuerden (talk) 06:22, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

This is precisely the sort of behaviour that he was banned for. He's already tried to evade the ban by abusing multiple accounts, and now he's working around it by abusing the privilege of having access to his talk page. Time to adjust the block settings. —LX (talk, contribs) 10:09, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Pretty sure he's socking as well. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/95.195.135.213 Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:47, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Please add any more you see to Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Pieter Kuiper—13 there so far. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 01:53, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

You're right, talk page access revoked. We decided to block him, he is just getting round the block, time to go harsher. I will email block him too if he uses that to do anything annoying. -mattbuck (Talk) 10:29, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Hum. Do we think removing talk page access is likely to reduce or to increase the amount of trouble caused? And haven't we just been arguing for blocked users to raise issues on their talkpage instead of socking? I don't think this was a good move. Rd232 (talk) 11:05, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd also prefer that he raised any copyvio concerns on his talk page rather than a DR from an IP (since we are all against circumventing blocks). --12:17, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Per 99of9/Rd232. In practice while I strongly dislike PK's approach hosting copyright violations here is wrong. I'm not fussy as to who points that out to us. Indeed the only people who can really be fussy about it are those who upload copyright violations... --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:21, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not in favour of revoking talk page access either, since it hasn't been heavily misused. Yes, PK's comment alleged bad faith, which isn't helpful. But he was also alleging copyright violation, and it's better for him to so on his talk page than for us not to hear about these concerns, or for him to be forced to raise them as an IP. --Avenue (talk) 01:09, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

What is better is for him to be blocked. He is abusing IPs while banned, he knows this is wrong, he continues to do it, I see no reason to do anything but revoke all access and hope he gets bored. -mattbuck (Talk) 01:56, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Talkpage access restored, as there was no consensus to remove it, and removing it only makes disruptive socking more likely. Rd232 (talk) 22:28, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

DR closure request

Would someone mind closing Commons:Deletion requests/File:Couple outside my window (4904452799).jpg? It has been open for almost two weeks and received no comments for the last five days. Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:51, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done. As I keep saying, lack of subject consent cuts through much of the debate on these kinds of photos; much of the debate was predicated on it being a US photo, which it isn't. Rd232 (talk) 19:10, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Please refer to User_talk:Rd232#UK_consent and Commons_talk:Country_specific_consent_requirements on this closure and what I believe is a misinterpretation of UK law/requirements, and hence its misapplication to that discussion in closing. russavia (talk) 05:40, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that the files should not have been deleted, or just that the specific deletion rationale was incorrect? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:07, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Taking a break for some MELLOW time

I'm taking a break from recent drama for some COM:MELLOW time.

I'll defer to the judgment of other admins with regards to admin actions.

Please feel free to change what you wish on prior admin actions — no worries, either way. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 05:31, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Wich duplicates should be deleted?

I am not sure what must be done in such cases: File:Qa'alat Shaizar, Orontes Valley, Syria - 1.jpg and File:Qa'alat Shaizar, Orontes Valley, Syria.jpg are duplicates of, respectively, File:Shayzar3.jpg and File:Shayzar4.jpg. The latter were uploaded first, moved form IT.WP, while the others were uploaded from FlickR. The problem is that all of them have Exif data and they present different authors, so I don't know which ones must be deleted.

Thank you very much. --Stegop (talk) 21:25, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

The Flickr author only joined Flickr in 2012 (it says here), so the Flickr files are the later duplicates. Still, it's not clear from the it.wp files whether the it.wp uploader is actually the author; this should be clarified. Rd232 (talk) 21:46, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

If the EXIF data are believed, the photos were taken on 24 August 2007. The it.wikipedia user uploaded them to it.wikipedia just two weeks later, on 6 September 2007, as part of a series of 10 photos he uploaded that day (see log). That looks like a good point in favor of the it.wikipedia user. Also, an image search does not seem to show pre-existing copies elsewhere on the net before the upload to it.wikipedia. The flickr user uploaded the two photos to flickr on 24 June 2012 (see photostream), between other photos that are not from the same series although they are about the same country. That looks like a bad point for the flickr user. We can note that neither user explicitely state that those photos are to be attributed to him, although both users tagged them with free licenses: GFDL on it.wikipedia (with CC-by-sa added later during the license migration) and CC-by on flickr (apparently chaged later to CC-by-nc). Exploring the uploads of the flickr user, two things can be noted. Firstly, for some photos, he explictely claims authoship. Secondly, it can be seen that his uploads include photos that are not from him. Here is an example. This photo is from a series by photographer Stacy Pearsall. If this photo is PD-U.S.-gov, technically this example may not be a copyvio, but the flickr user uploading it to his account without credit nor source, and his placing it under a license, is, at the least, misleading. This example shows that the flickr user seems to have a modus operandi of uploading to flickr other people's photos. In conclusion, I think the situation seems in favor of the it.wikipedia user and against the flickr user, and it is the duplicates from the flickr user that should be deleted. -- Asclepias (talk) 00:17, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Your arguments are quite strong indeed. I'll tag the FlickR photos (newer uploads) as duplicates to delete. --Stegop (talk) 22:24, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Blocks on dynamic IPs tagged as puppets

I'll express my thoughts here too (as well as on a couple of the blocking admins talk pages) as I think we are making a mistake tagging dynamic IPs as being puppet account related. These ones are Kuiper's however the point applies to any and all dynamic IPs so tagged. The key is in the word dynamic - the odds of that user using the same IP again in the foreseeable future are small. All that happens is that someone editing from an IP will get a puzzling/off putting message. From personal experience I know what this is like. My IP is dynamic and I only use https however some links take me to http and I've had messages saying I've vandalised en wp... So - someone with my service provider has but the odds of me being on that IP again are small. This is not the way to encourage IPs to contribute (which I believe we do). Even blocking collections of dynamic IPs is pointless - you don't even need to switch the router on and off to change it... --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:02, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Agreed - tagging dynamic IPs is one way to track activity, and it's relatively easy. But equally we could make a page (eg a subpage of the sockpuppeteer's userpage) and link to the dynamic IPs contribs (ideally specifying the period believed to be an issue). That way we're tracking, but not putting off future users. It's not like the probability of a dynamic IP being reused by a socker is very high - there is very little gained from tagging apart from tracking. Rd232 (talk) 11:10, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Is there any way of analysing the IP range to see how many folks contribute to Commons within this range (presumably a definable subset of Telia Network Services' provision in Sweden) as anon IP accounts, rather than only Pieter Kuiper? This would give some realistic sense of risk/benefit ratio to any administrative action. I had thought of doing a search for a range of IP addresses that had ever commented on Commons talk pages, but I am unsure of what that would prove, apart from potentially flushing out the numbers of other accounts that PK may have used. If the answer turns out that only PK edits using anon IP accounts in this range, then the decision seems very simple, until we get some independent requests to unblock or PK himself is ready to request an unblock and commit to a change in behaviour. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 11:34, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I think to suggest that only PK edits from an entire telecoms company would be - I hope - selling Foundation projects very very short. I would be vehemently against any suggestion to range block a telecom company based on one user (indeed it would the last you would see of me).--Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:44, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree, that action would be excessive, hence me asking if a definable subset of their provision was the space that PK operated in. I am not familiar with Telia's chosen network topology, so it's an open question rather than a suggested action. After all, if a bit of analysis shows the likelihood of an IP address within PK's expected range being used by anyone else to write on Commons being less than 1/1000 over a year, then blocking an individual IP address (or a range of 1,000) for six months presents a vanishingly small chance of inconveniencing anyone.

There are other options that should be considered, for example Telia may not be prepared to refuse service based on this sort of reported problem, however they might be prepared to provide PK with a fixed IP, which would solve any problem instantly and still be within any likely contract for service provision. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 12:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

In the general case, there is no useful purpose served by tagging dynamic IPs as sockpuppets of any particular user. Tracking IPs used by blocked users is only useful if the intent is to isolate an IP range for a range block. This discussion doesn't seem to be about the general case but about Pieter Kuiper, who appears to be some kind of Commons bogeyman. From what I have seen, Kuiper was diligent in pointing out uploads with dubious copyright status, and was right more often than not. Invoking the spectre of Kuiper is enough to requests prematurely shut down legitimate deletion requests. It says a lot about the Commons community that he is blocked and that more effort is being expended to prevent him from raising further deletion requests as an IP. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:52, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I would just restate the fact that my posting was intended to be general rather than particular - I have commented on PK's behaviour elsewhere - as with so many people, some of it is bad and some of it good. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:40, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

•  Comment - Here are some pointers about why this is appropriate to deter socking and violation of block evasion:

1. The sockmaster in question has demonstrated willful intent to continue to violate Commons:Blocking policy and perform block evasion and socking.
2. It should be very easy to do a Checkuser on the ranges in question and individual IPs to see if anyone else has used them and if there is any collateral damage.
3. The blocks are done in such a way as to allow any IP or user to request an unblock via their user talk page.
4. If any registered user is affected, they can request an IP block exempt.
5. With all above parameters, I see no reason why not to continue the IP blocks and taggings to track the abusive use of sockpuppets to carry out a behavior of block evasion.

-- Cirt (talk) 15:55, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I disagree strongly - this smacks of witch hunting to me. I have never seen so many posts about a single puppeteer on Commons and I must stress this post was intended to be about the general principle of tagging dynamic IPs which to me is plain wrong. Let's see what others say - it would be good to have uninvolved views though sadly the concept of uninvolved people in this issue is thorny. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:53, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

It smacks of willfully encouraging a sockmaster to continue block evasion. -- Cirt (talk) 16:56, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

You blocked me, assuming I was Kuiper and did not post anything on my user page on how to request unblocks. How can you describe your conduct other than as problematic? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.210.30.32 (talk • contribs) 16:53, December 16, 2012‎ (UTC)

I originally applied that block which was for a week. This was after you posted on my talk as an IP very soon after PK had done the DR in question as an IP. What followed was some very understandable confusion which has since been rectified. I wouldn't call it problematic. INeverCry 01:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay my mistake on that but he did then block me for a year and label me as someone I am not. Hopefully you and he will both know in future to inform the IP of why they are blocked and let them know of ways to appeal just in case you both make other mistaken blocks. If I had not contacted you and Rd232 the block would have stood for a year. My connection is not so reliable that I would not have rebooted during that year and then someone else, a fourth or fifth or sixth party, would have been allocated the Ip address. If you and Cirt don't check that people you block are even in the same country as your intended target and the line is blocked then that is most certainly problematic. I chose to email a couple of admins here to sort out the mistaken block. It would have been less effort for me to change IPs and then we could have seen Cirt creating his wild range blocks for a year on an ISP that, AFAIK, PK has never used and is unlikely to ever use--85.210.30.32 01:58, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, here comes the forum shopping... en:User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Commons_range_blocks. -mattbuck (Talk) 02:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be no need to fear. It hasn't worked in the past. - UnbelievableError (talk) 07:22, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Multiple numbers of the socks are NOT dynamic

• Multiple numbers of the socks exhibit a pattern of having been blocked, then once the block expires, they go right back to being used for block evasion by the sockmaster.

Here are a few examples:

1. 90.184.205.91 (talk · contribs) = was blocked one week, that short block did NOT deter block evasion, came back to socking and block evasion after block expired.
2. 83.254.247.75 (talk · contribs) = was blocked one week, that short block did NOT deter block evasion, came back to socking and block evasion after block expired.
3. 194.47.95.146 (talk · contribs) = used by same sockmaster since December 2009.

-- Cirt (talk) 16:08, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Looking at the cross wiki contribs here these IPs may have been reused by someone however I see nothing to suggest that globally they are the only person to use the IPs concerned. Then again I may be wrong - it is a facet of the use of IPs - hard to be certain at times --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:43, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

There were clearly multiple cases here where the IPs were NOT dynamic, the initial blocks were NOT sufficient, and the sockmaster came back to willfully commit block evasion through socking with the same IPs, again. -- Cirt (talk) 16:46, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

However it does not mean he is the only person using those IPs - I suspect they may be work related ones in some cases --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:49, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

You've presented zero evidence to back up these claims of things you "suspect". -- Cirt (talk) 16:55, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Go look at the contribs yourself - present evidence that only one user is using these IP across wikis - innocent until proven guilty works for me and is the law mostly. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 17:05, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I have looked at the contribs - I see no evidence that more than one user is using these IPs on Commons. -- Cirt (talk) 17:07, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

What else do you suggest to be done in response to socking and block evasion?

•  Comment - Questions I've posed to Herbythyme (talk · contribs) at his user talk page:

1. What else do you suggest to be done in response to socking and block evasion?
2. Do you think absolutely nothing should be done?
3. Should we thank the sockmaster for performing socking and block evasion — by enabling the sockmaster and his socks?
4. Should we not even bother to check if there is any collateral damage by a CU check with the checkuser tool, and just assume this?
5. Should an investigation be started at Commons:Requests for checkuser? Would this investigation request result in any Checkuser actions being taken?
6. Should we change Commons:Blocking policy to explicitly state that it is perfectly okay for a blocked user to perform block evasion via sockpuppetting?

I respect your opinion and value your input and would appreciate answers to these questions, below.

Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 15:59, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid my answers here are rather simplistic. Almost nothing can be done about folk who decide to sock using dynamic IPs - I have been a CU long enough to know and CUs spend time tracking down puppeteers who operate like that. I've never seen so many postings about any other puppeteers though.

I'm equally afraid that I retain the view expressed elsewhere. Copyright violations cannot be hosted here and I do not give a monkeys who points them out to me. As a Commons admin I spend a vast amount of time dealing with copyvios (& others spend far more than me). The only people who will get upset about us finding copyright violations are those who upload them.

I commented on my views on running random CU checks on possible ranges quite some time back and my views have not changed - that would be abuse of the tools.

Some of the other questions strike me as pointless I'm afraid and that is sad. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 16:49, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

So you're totally fine with encouraging blocked users to perform block evasion through socking. That's quite sad. -- Cirt (talk) 16:50, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

So you're totally fine with allowing copyright violations to persist rather than allow blocked users to point them out. That's quite sad. Would be the flipside, put in the same unhelpful sarky tone. Rd232 (talk) 17:04, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Nope. I never said that. Blocked users can edit their talk page to post complaints. If they abuse that privilege, the can still email complaints via the OTRS process. -- Cirt (talk) 17:06, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

(ec) but entirely per Rd232. If they are copyvios I don't give a **** who tells us. If this was vandalism/spamming/etc my views would be very different but it ain't. --Herby ^{talk thyme}

Sure, and they can tell you via posts to their user talk page, or if they abuse that, via emails to OTRS. -- Cirt (talk) 17:08, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually in this case their user page access has been blocked........... --Herby ^{talk thyme} 18:44, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

They can then email OTRS with specific copyright complaints. -- Cirt (talk) 19:37, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Herby. It is very difficult to defend against users who want to attack us from IP addresses. As a CU, I have seen users that have had many IP addresses over the three month period reported to CUs -- certainly more than twenty, perhaps more than fifty. Several of those have had as many as ten IP addresses with multiple users that were, as far as I could tell, unrelated. Any block of even a single IP address would have had collateral damage.

It is all well and good to say that any innocent bystanders could request an IP block exemption if necessary, but understanding why an IP block exemption might be required and how to request one requires a certain level of sophistication. How many of our 25,000 users would simply shrug and not contribute further to Commons?

I also agree with Herby that in welcoming any user's reports of valid copyright problems. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 18:32, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Other than the main sockmaster himself, I'm not seeing any evidence of collateral impact. -- Cirt (talk) 18:33, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

You blocked me and I'm not "the main sockmaster" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.210.30.32 (talk • contribs) 16:50, December 16, 2012‎ (UTC)

@ Jim, etc - Are you really saying you welcome the sock puppet edits of an indef blocked user? If so, you're encouraging violation of Commons policy. No edits from an indef blocked user are acceptable according to Commons policy. None. (Obviously excepting talkpage edits). INeverCry 18:40, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

See my comment above If this was vandalism/spamming/etc my views would be very different but it ain't. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 18:45, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh - and ask for my resignation and you will get it. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 18:46, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Damn ... what's going on here? I'm sure people appreciate and trust you and I wouldn't like to see you quit. Please stay ... Trijnstel_talk 21:39, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

"encouraging violation of Commons policy" - not exactly. We're talking about socking being used to report copyright violations; there are two policies in play here, and COM:L is the more important one. For other kinds of sock contributions, we'd just revert or delete; the only reasons it's a problem here is because COM:L is ultimately more important than COM:BLOCK. Rd232 (talk) 18:49, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, let me say to Herby that I have no desire whatsoever to see you resign. You're a valuable contributor by any standard. That we disagree on a few things is a natural part of life for people with strong opinions. As for PK, the time several of us have been taking to discuss his socking and the relatively few DRs he's done could've been put to better use tagging blatant copyvios, like the 1000's of them sitting in Category:Media needing categories. INeverCry 19:05, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

• Making block evasion harder by using zombie-cookies and tracking page-view, scrolling-, typing- and mouse-move-pattern and collecting all data we can get like screen width, browser window width, flash version, java version, browser and OS/version, trying to connect to his router and getting its model and ID, tracking geo location when he's using mobile devices, IP addresses …; what did I forget? -- Rillke^(q?) 21:01, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Blocking thousands of IPs for a year

User:Cirt range-blocked 95.195.128.0/19 for a year (8000+IPs) + 95.199.0.0/19 for a year (8000+IPs) + 95.195.144.0/20 for a year (4000+IPs) + 90.236.0.0/17 (32,000+IPs). Thank God we're not over-reacting, eh? Rd232 (talk) 01:26, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I think it's a necessary response. Otherwise we give PK and others the impression that we either condone socking or are in a position of helplessness or powerlessness. That doesn't sound like a good idea to me. INeverCry 01:41, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Um hum. We don't have any policy on range-blocking (en:Wikipedia:Blocking_IP_addresses#Range_blocks is a possible reference, pointing out that with IPv6 millions of addresses can be blocked), but COM:BLOCK does say As a rule of thumb, when in doubt, do not block; instead, consult other administrators for advice.. Cough. Rd232 (talk) 01:53, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Account creation has been disabled for these IPs. How is that justified by what PK has allegedly been doing?

And while we are not powerless, we can't block dynamic IPs without some collateral damage. I think there are real concerns here about whether the collateral damage outweighs the benefit (which is not a unalloyed benefit anyway). --Avenue (talk) 02:10, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

 Comment If PK is allowed to sock at will, then his indef block is empty and pointless. If we can't stop the IP socks we might as well lift his block and tell him he has carte blanche on Commons. INeverCry 02:39, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Sure. Same as if we can't stop people taking drugs even though it's illegal, we might as well make drugtaking compulsory. But before that, we should make a last-ditch effort to make prohibition work, by nuking every street with a drug addict living in it. It's just common sense, really. Rd232 (talk) 02:47, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Now you're speaking my language! INeverCry 02:58, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Rangeblocks to stop willful violation of Commons blocking policy by block evasion

Rangeblocks are appropriate to stop willful violation of Commons:Blocking policy by block evasion:

1. Again, no evidence there's any collateral damage.
2. A checkuser on the ranges would show if there is or not.
3. Users can still edit their talk pages, and request unblock that way.
4. If users have registered user account, admins can then give them IP block exempt.

Therefore, it's quite sensible. -- Cirt (talk) 03:58, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Cirt, how did you assess the collateral damage before you applied the rangeblock? Did you have a checkuser look at the activity in the range? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:11, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Well I didn't see any activity other than the sockmaster on the individual IPs. I left the option open for collateral users to request unblock on their user talk pages, and that way if admins wish they can suggest that person create a registered account, and grant them IP block exempt. So that way, there really will be zero collateral damage. :) -- Cirt (talk) 04:14, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Is there any evidence of him using sleeper socks? If not, I see no good reason for disabling anon-only. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:30, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I ran a check on the range and will note that there are a number of legitimate users editing from it (some with userrights). Tiptoety ^talk 04:52, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Tiptoety (talk · contribs), I've reduced all the rangeblocks to 3 months, and made them softer blocks. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 05:08, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I think this is a serious mistake. Cirt makes four assertions in support of his or her action, all of which are problematic:

1. "Again, no evidence there's any collateral damage." -- Tiptoey has shown that this is not correct.
2. "A checkuser on the ranges would show if there is or not." see #1
3. "Users can still edit their talk pages, and request unblock that way." Really? How will anyone know that User:X has made such a request? No one is watching all of the talk pages that will be affected. Since these are dynamic IPs those affected will change from minute to minute.
4. "If users have registered user account, admins can then give them IP block exempt." Yes, but at the moment our policy is to welcome IP users. This certainly doesn't seem like welcoming to me.

Finally, I am also quite sure that it will not affect Pieter -- he is smart enough to evade any attempt we make to block him, unless we simply block all users from Sweden -- and I am not at all sure that would stop him. So, I think the result of this will be to drive away a few Swedish users and have no lasting affect on Pieter. Not a good decision. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 13:00, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Cirt, about this "no collateral damage". You've made that claim even after I pointed out above that you had blocked this IP for a year even though I am not PK. Neither you nor INeverCry bothered to post on the IP's user page how to get unblocked. Exactly how would a new user know how to request unblock on their talk page? I didn't know how to do so. You seem to be so obsessed by your mission to thump PK that mere awkward facts that not every IP editor in the world is a PK sockpuppet, not every person in Scandinavia is PK and indeed that most of his deletion requests are valid are not worth considering in your world.--85.210.30.32 13:57, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

unless we simply block all users from Sweden -- and I am not at all sure that would stop him. - considering how trivially easy it is to get an IP address from another country, no, I don't see why it would. I think these rangeblocks and the block on editing his talk page should be removed, because they are pointless at best. Rd232 (talk) 14:05, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Commons needs some applied Daoism here. You cannot control the world. Learn from the people who built the High Aswan Dam. It is in your power to control the floods of the Nile, but it is not in your power to stop it from flowing. Like them, you must decide how much treasure to surrender to the water to keep the rest safe.

To rangeblock is to sacrifice some of the idea of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. To rangeblock a provider as a bargaining chip, to make it subject a user to humiliating identification requirements or to throw him off, sacrifices this objective for a hope of temporal power.

What do you gain by this? To keep someone from making occasional comments here under anonymous IP, yes. But he can make comments anywhere else. We have seen these Wikipediocracy people are even more annoying when they go to the press and attack WMF's purpose, goals, and freedom to exist than when they edit here. It is better to let this water flow over the spillway than wash around the flanks of the dam.

Like all rights, the right to anonymous editing looks like a protection for the individual, but is really even more a protection for the community. Knowing that we cannot permanently silence an editor protects us from the concentration of absolute power and the madness that comes from it.

In the hunt the king uses beaters on three sides only

And forgoes game that runs off in front.

The citizens need no warning.

Good fortune.^[9]

Wnt (talk) 17:44, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

 Comment My interest in this has been the same as Cirt's: to try and find a solution that works so that PK can't put up more frivolous and malicious DRs (and yes, I know some of his DRs are decent - I've deleted the files myself in a few cases - but some of them are used as tools to fuck with people) and continue to make a joke of his indef block. In the end, what I'm hearing is that there's no solution at all to indef blocked users socking around blocks with dynamic IPs. So what's the point of the block itself? It ends up being symbolic. Anyways, I don't doubt that PK loves all the attention this is getting, so I'm going back to taking care of some of the work that needs doing here on Commons. INeverCry 20:04, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I just stumbled across this thread. I'm very active on en.wikipedia but not here. I had always thought of Commons' administration as saner and more civilized than en.wikipedia's. I hope you don't succumb to Wikipedia admins' obsession with sockpuppets and banned users. In a world of plagues, global warming and now the imminent Mayan Apocalypse, there's just so much more to worry about. Rather than range-blocking big chunks of Sweden and getting all your admins fighting with each other, why don't you just accept some low level of misbehaviour from this PK you're talking about? Unless this guy is cancer incarnate, why subject yourself to radical chemotherapy just to eliminate a bad cold? From a quick skim of the above, it looks like he's not all that dangerous.

I know Wikipedia would be a happier place if admins there sometimes took a more sanguine approach.

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 20:42, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Pieter Kuier barely even qualifies as a nuisance. His crime is not uploading copyright violations (for which people are generally not blocked) or vandalizing Commons or even harassing editors. His crime is questioning the licensing of uploads made by prominent users here. And he is most often correct to question them. This is silencing critics, not preventing damage to the project. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:13, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

As another occasional Commons contributor who is more active at EN, I'm pleased to see this indication that Commons is taking serial abuse seriously. For a long time, I've followed a sockpuppet army that seems to take delight in "contributing" copyvio content to both EN.Wikipedia and Commons. At this point, the users' patterns are pretty obvious to me. The user was long ago banned at EN, meaning that new socks can be blocked when detected and their contributions can be deleted, but at Commons it's been necessary to convincingly demonstrate that each new image is a copyvio (this includes images that are familiar to me because I'm pretty sure they've been repeatedly deleted in the past), apparently indicating a good-faith hope that some of the images are actually correctly represented. After tagging about a dozen images today because I could find convincing evidence of a problem, while leaving many others untagged because I can't prove they are problematic, I'd love to think that Commons administrators would someday accept that a batch of new images come from a new sock of a notorious sockpuppeteer and should not be kept. However, I don't endorse aggressive rangeblocking -- clever vandals will always find ways to evade those, but they will discourage legitimate users.

PS - My sockpuppeteer "friend" is most recently uploading files as Hiyahkick. Some other incarnations have included Yuckycurry, Opti3rd, ChoisOne, Sons4Sunder, MargeFlanders, ElykSenoj, NUARB, ITSWEEPS, Geezalou, SEACORD, ChucksBike-O-Rama, Smurfette143, 15ParkRow, KatieGrinn, Yonkinator, Tuscanice, RosieO, Bigrigged, Greaterg, ChanceTears, Frankiesay22, Civlov, and many more. Some old details are at Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/Attention/Archive_6#VERY old deletion requests still unprocessed, Commons:Requests for checkuser/Case/ChucksBike-O-Rama and other threads. --Orlady (talk) 21:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

There does not seem to be a consensus for these rangeblocks. Can someone undo them, please? Rd232 (talk) 21:00, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I've already reduced the rangeblocks in time, greatly. I see no consensus to undo them. -- Cirt (talk) 21:02, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I've always vociferously opposed the idea that consensus is required to overturn a block. No, consensus is required to sustain a block that has been challenged. Rd232 (talk) 21:08, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Orlady, I'm confused -- is Pieter Kuiper the same person who's behind the sockpuppets you're referring to? Or are you giving an example of another sockpuppetry problem? Copyright violations are a much bigger deal than other issues because of our obligations to the off-Wikimedia world (the same is true of libel). I had been under the impression Pieter Kuiper was under a cloud here because of his interactions with other Commons editors, not copyright infringement. Because of our legal duties, chronic, willful copyright infringement would force an admin on either project to do a lot of things they wouldn't otherwise do.

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 22:20, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

This is an entirely different sockmaster that I am talking about, unrelated to Pieter Kuiper. I have been frustrated over the years by the way Commons administrators have assumed good faith with each and every successive sockpuppet, essentially requiring that copyright infringement must be individually proven on each and every uploaded image (something I'm not particularly good at), and continually giving the user the benefit of the doubt when, for example, a claim of PD-US is accepted based on assertions like "I found it in the library". I had given up hoping that Commons would start to take serious action against long-term abuse, but this unrelated thread gives me a sliver of new hope. --Orlady (talk) 22:58, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like you should focus on proving the alleged socking. If it's reasonably certain that an uploader is the sock of a serial copyright violator, all their uploads should be treated as suspect, and deleted unless it can be shown that they're OK. This has nothing to do with the present issue of range-blocking though. Rd232 (talk) 23:07, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Reduced rangeblocks to two weeks time expiry

I've reduced the rangeblocks of the socks of the main sockmaster performing block evasion, to two weeks time. If he performs violations of block evasion after that, we can always add lengthier blocks later. :) Hopefully this is now satisfactory, -- Cirt (talk) 21:10, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I support the use of these range blocks and, if necessary, their continuation after the 2 week period now given. INeverCry 21:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, we can evaluate after 2 weeks period of time if further extensions are needed, if there's been evidence of further block evasion since then. -- Cirt (talk) 21:22, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

That's twice you've reduced these rangeblocks - first from a year to 3 months, then from 3 months to 2 weeks. In neither case did you or anyone else propose these alternative lengths; the discussion was about the usefulness of the blocks per se, leaning against. Both cases look like attempts to shut down discussion. No, this behaviour (and you've just done something very very similar in discussion with Rillke at User_talk:Cirt#User:90.184.205.91_used_by_PK.3F) is not "satisfactory". Rd232 (talk) 22:33, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

They look like attempts to go along with discussion and to find an answer that's acceptable to all involved to me. As for the IP unblock at Rillke's, what's wrong with that? There was a question of whether or not the IP was PK's, and so the IP was unblocked. INeverCry 22:42, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

They look like attempts to go along with discussion and to find an answer that's acceptable to all involved to me. - then you're not paying close enough attention, or taking into account that there is zero urgency in reducing a block length from very very long to very long to quite long (in any event the users are blocked, there's no rush). Making suggestions would be trying to find an answer through discussion. Implementing these block changes is trying to impose one. As for the Rillke discussion - it's the changing of the block as a way to shutdown discussion and avoid answering questions which is the similarity I'm seeing. Rd232 (talk) 22:47, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

A year, three months, two weeks -- any range block is going to be a problem to legitimate users and will do nothing to deter Pieter from continuing. As far as I am concerned, the only acceptable time for these blocks is zero. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 23:13, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

+1. Benefits of a block here are approximately zero, and the costs are uncertain and may be substantial. Rd232 (talk) 23:40, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I do not think that these IP range blocks are appropriate. Surely not for a year but likewise not even for two weeks. In summary, I do not think that we have any benefit from them but I'm afraid that they hurt the openness of this project. In particular:

• Blocking dynamic IP addresses for longer than a day or whatever the retention period happens to be is unlikely to block whoever ought to be blocked but possibly someone else who is unrelated to the other user.
• Some dynamic IP address ranges are used for NAT. This is true in particular for some providers of mobile networks. These addresses are shared all the time among multiple clients and it is not uncommon to get the same IP address back again after some period, giving the impression of static IP addresses.
• Some static IP addresses belong to proxies which are shared by a significant number of users.

This holds even for blocks of single IP addresses. Blocking entire ranges makes things infinite worse. As a member of the OTRS team I know that these blocks are incredibly frustrating. At de-wp we had infinite trouble with a quite popular provider who NATed his address pool. We got contacted by regulars who were hit again and again by IP blocks not meant for them. But occasional users have rarely the energy and patience to ask on their talk page for help or to send an email to the support team. --AFBorchert (talk) 23:38, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I've removed these range blocks. There was already consensus to reverse them; AFBorchert's comment gives more reasons to be very cautious about such blocks. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to quote COM:BLOCK again: As a rule of thumb, when in doubt, do not block; instead, consult other administrators for advice. Range-blocks are extremely powerful tools, and if there isn't a pressing need, it would really be very advisable to discuss them before doing them. Rd232 (talk) 02:19, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good, per AFBorchert (talk · contribs), we can always re-block the dynamic IPs later for shorter periods, if and when needed if additional socking and block evasion pops up again from the sockmaster. -- Cirt (talk) 05:23, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion: en:WP:DENY

I'd suggest that the best thing to do then, is simply deny all recognition to Pieter. If we see a DR by one of his socks, delete it if it's obviously invalid, and if it is valid, delete it, and then promptly create a new one, not mentioning him or how it was found. Don't discuss things with him on his talk page; just take any suggestions, open deletions if valid, then delete the comments. Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:27, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

That sounds good at first glance, but it makes me very uneasy to delete any DR. Even a CU cannot be absolutely sure that a given IP is a PK sock. Who is to determine if a DR is valid? The whole reason for the DR process is to get discussion about validity -- if that were not the case, then everything would be a {{Speedy}}. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 17:46, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Honestly? From looking at Pieter's DRs? About half are things that should be handled another way, such as {{Nld}}. A small number are prima facie spurious - for instance, in one case he was trying to argue that the OTRS might reveal negligence, when he hadn't asked OTRS to check it. (and that should be the requirement for it not being recreated: it must be prima facie spurious harrassment, with no merit). The rest should be recreated immediately.

At the very least, this would prevent the common circumstance where he uses DR as a grandstand to attack other users - the text will have been rewritten to be a neutral setting-out of the issues. We cannot have a situation where we allow sockmaster attacks to stand because there might be problems with files. we can easily delete his comments and still deal with the files. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:15, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

First, I should say that I never use {{Nld}} -- I think that all potential issues with a file deserve the wide visibility of a DR, not the essentially invisible {{Nld}}.

Second, as I noted above, even a CU cannot always be sure of a sock and a significant fraction of the potential socks I am asked to look at turn out to be completely unrelated. I don't like deleting a DR because someone thinks it came from a PK sock.

PK has caused us to write over 6,000 words above -- better just to ignore him, dealing with each case as it comes up. I also have another suggestion -- see below. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 18:49, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Your page is blocked due to a security policy that prohibits access to Category default

This morning, I got on several saves of category edits or previews (such as Category:Maps of regions in Italy by province) a blank page with on top: "Your page is blocked due to a security policy that prohibits access to Category default ". Any idea what that might be ? --Foroa (talk) 09:56, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

You're at work and your employer is playing around with a new firewall? Got a screenshot? Multichill (talk) 21:51, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Explanation from Duane Hurst (Non-Spam Message)

I appreciate the concern that some Wikipedia users are expressing about my recent posted messages. My intention was to thank people for sharing their images, which I use on my free web site (freeenglishsite.com). Likewise, I wanted Wikipedia users to know that I only use images that are free-ware. Another reason was to share material that I prepared for those interested in knowing more English slang and idioms. I do not seek and will not accept any fee. I support the Wikipedia concept of freely sharing information to the broader community.

For those who thought my message was "spam", I apologize for the misunderstanding and hope you will reconsider my intention. I have received positive comments from users who found my site useful and supported use of their material on my free site. I entered each message individually, although the wording was quite similar (except for file links).

My question for Wikipedia administrators and the community:

Will it be acceptable to include the name of my site when expressing thanks for a Wikipedia image? In other words, two links in the message: 1) the image link on Wikipedia; and 2) the link to my site home page. This will allow an individual to know where their material is being used, in the event that they may not approve of my using their free-ware material. I want to be certain that a person is not offended by my use of their pictures.

I hope this clarifies my actions and will allow me to continue sending thanks to users in a less obtrusive way. Thank you for the consideration and please also reply to me directly at [email removed]

Sincerely, Duane Hurst.

Thanks for your message. If you want users to be able to email you, it's best if you create an account and enable email in your account preferences. Rd232 (talk) 03:05, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the recommendation. I created an account and enabled email

as Duane_Hurst (talk) --Duane R Hurst 03:55, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd suggest preparing a short explanation of your site on your userpage, then if you want to send hundreds of "thankyou"s, just post a very short message to the photographers saying which files you have used, and pointing them to your userpage for more details. That way there will only be one outbound link to your site in total, which will make clear that you are not attempting some kind of search engine optimization strategy. --99of9 (talk) 05:16, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Also, please can you reconsider your use of the term "freeware". I don't think this is quite appropriate for all images, not all are in the public domain. I understand that you have respected the licenses, great. But saying "freeware" might give your customers the idea that they can just take them and do what they wish without complying with the license terms. --99of9 (talk) 05:19, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Another suggestion would be to add a {{Published}} template on the talk page of each file you use. The creators normally watch their own file uploads and will notice change in the their watchlist. Now, this template may be a bit intimidating to use the first time (we can help), but once you have filled one out correctly, it can basically be copy-pasted on other file talk pages, perhaps with small modifications of relevance for the individual image.--Slaunger (talk) 09:08, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Excessive posting of a link is spamming. Reading the statement and assuming good faith it still looks somewhat promotional and should be removed (& I agree with Rillke's ation BL'ing it). --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:15, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Still placing similar messages and I've just deleted the user page. Given there are no actual contributions to this project a page about someone's website is and always will be out of scope for me. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 09:27, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Mr. Hurst, of course you are free to use links to the files at Wikipedia/Commons. They aren't an issue. Here's my proposal:

• Either you write a small thank you message with max. one link to your web site which is pointing directly to where the file is used.
• Or you e-Mail users directly through the e-mail this user feature (go the user page and press Email this user) where you can be more explanative. However, it would be nice if you could elaborate on why the user's file was so useful to you in favour of generally explaining your web site.

Comments? -- Rillke^(q?) 09:41, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Rename Commons:Village pump/Header to Template:Village pump header/en

First, this should be in the template name space.

Second, without an english version Template:Village pump header can't work properly and I don't want to do a copy/paste. Ju gatsu mikka (^o^) appelez moi Ju (^o^) 12:36, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. But it was protected in 2007 with the summary probably shouldn't be edited by anons, and shouldn't be moved [edit=autoconfirmed:move=sysop], so I hesitate to leap in and move it immediately. I don't see why moving it should break anything, but I'll just a wait in case someone else has an opinion. Rd232 (talk) 23:56, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

It does not make sense to have an {{Autotranslate}} for Template:Village pump header which are used in localized village pump (based on language set in the user preferences), just a waste of time IMO. --PierreSelim (talk) 14:32, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree it should not be autotranslated. This will be very confusing because the "local village pumps" have different names and archives. As for moving, I have no strong opinion. Just care for the links to it. -- Rillke^(q?) 14:53, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Fully agree with you, moving is not a problem, just the confusion about the autotranslate worries me. --PierreSelim (talk) 15:54, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Right. On the one hand, it does make sense to translate the English header on the English Village Pump, because all sorts of people may end up there and it may be helpful to have the header translated. On the other hand, converting the template is more complicated than it looks because other language village pumps tie into it, and they have their own links (for archives etc). So for example the German Commons:Forum uses {{Village pump header/de}} (via a redirect), and the links there shouldn't be changed to English Village Pump links if you go to the Forum with English as your interface language. So if we want autotranslation for English Village Pump, we need to make it use a new template name (eg {{English Village Pump Header}}) so that there won't be any effect on other village pumps. Rd232 (talk) 23:24, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Hello, forget the idea of autotranslation, but can you a least rename it and move the documentation to the top as on the others: {{Village pump header}}. Ju gatsu mikka (^o^) appelez moi Ju (^o^) 12:58, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

en-wiki admin help please

Can an En-wiki admin please help find the original author and details of File:Capybara.jpg? It was originally at en:File:Ph-animals-capybara-2.jpg, but has been deleted. --99of9 (talk) 03:10, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Heh, I've got a whole category of that sort of thing: Category:PD tag needs updating (en.wp). For any en.wp admins feeling helpful... Rd232 (talk) 03:14, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Took care of the original. Will look at the category. -Djsasso (talk) 15:21, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. Much appreciated. --99of9 (talk) 10:47, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Deletion requests closed "speedy keep"

Admins are reminded that Commons:Deletion requests does not provide for any Speedy Keep outcome. Requests that are not obviously frivolous or malicious or accidental (which should be deleted) should be left open for 7 days. If we want to change this policy, we should change it, but occasionally ignoring it is not necessary and not helpful. Rd232 (talk) 01:05, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Since my name is in the edit summary for this post, I guess I'll answer it. I disagree with the above. The following wording from the DR page seems to provide for speedy keeps, or atleast to be ambiguous enough not to give a concrete policy statement regarding the matter:

Once an administrator has sufficient information to come to a decision, the deletion request will be closed and the file either deleted or flagged as kept. In clear cases this might happen within a few hours, but more complicated cases can remain open for weeks or even months.

Lower down on the DR page, where the 7-day statement is made, the qualifier "generally" is added, opening up the guideline for interpretation. Who's to say exactly what "clear" is? In the 2 Fae closures, I thought the reasons for keep were clear. I think there's also something of an argument to be made as to whether or not those 2 DRs were "frivolous or malicious". I think they were bordeline the former and obviously the latter. INeverCry 02:05, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

In the context of the entire Commons:Deletion requests page, it's clear that early closes are intended to be Delete closes where it's a copyvio. We can add some leeway for speedy deletion of attack images and the like, but there really is no room there for a Speedy Keep concept. Nor do I see any good reason to add one - whatever leeway is needed to handle bad DR nominations should be via deletion of the DR itself. If you're not willing to delete the DR itself, then don't close it early as Keep. Since my name is in the edit summary for this post - actually it wasn't, check the page history. Rd232 (talk) 09:34, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. I was off by one diff when I looked at the history. Sorry about that. INeverCry 19:54, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

The role of Admin includes both a technical and a community role. Interpreting policy detail, such as when less than 7 days can apply for a DR, seems valid but technical work to me, whilst helping the community work constructively by applying influence and trust seems to be what is needed in these cases, and the bigger challenge. Personally, to avoid arguing over what counts as "frivolous or malicious", I would prefer to see DRs from blocked users to always be nominated by an admin rather than created directly (especially as it should be impossible if they are blocked)—I doubt anyone would expect less than 7 days for discussion in that scenario. Though it would be nice to see more clarifications happen by friendly discussion outside of an often adversarial formal process, I have no problem if any and all of my thousands of uploads were to be tested this way for compliance with policy. Perhaps I would pick up a few tips in the process. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 07:57, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

This discussion is already at COM:VP, and believe it or not, it wasn't motivated by DRs relating to you. Rd232 (talk) 09:34, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Proposal

Alright, how about clarifying the page:

Requests should not be closed "keep" in less than 7 days. Requests that are obviously frivolous, malicious or accidental may be deleted, with any substantive points made moved to a relevant file page or talk page.

Rd232 (talk) 09:34, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

 Oppose. It should be possible to deal with obvious cases more quickly without having to analyze whether the nominator has acted maliciously. Furthermore, deleting deletion requests is not a good idea. They should always be archived. —LX (talk, contribs) 10:20, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

It should be possible to deal with obvious cases more quickly - why? Examples of where this is necessary? And why is it necessary to keep junk DRs? Rd232 (talk) 10:36, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

It should be possible to deal with obvious cases quickly to keep the deletion requests backlog clear of needless clutter. Invalid deletion nominations should be kept to document that they've been dismissed as invalid. The persistent nominations of Islamic works of art come to mind. Deleting deletion discussions would just leave a bunch of confusing references pointing nowhere. —LX (talk, contribs) 11:19, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

 Oppose per LX --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:30, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

 Oppose Per LX. Also, DRs are often closed early when appropriate OTRS permission comes in. We're seeing 200+ DRs per day -- anything that reduces the number of open DRs without materially affecting process is a good thing. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 16:42, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Alright, that's an argument (especially if we remember that the month DR pages still run into problems with too many transclusions). So, should we perhaps elaborate at least a sentence or two of guidance? Because it seems to be a bit haphazard without it. Rd232 (talk) 17:05, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

 Oppose, agree with rationale by INeverCry (talk · contribs), above. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 17:36, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

 Comment We have some dedicated, sincere, quality control volunteers, who seem to be genuinely unaware of how flawed their nomination track record has been. They seem genuinely unaware how often their nominations are based on the same misinterpretations of our policies, over and over again. They seem genuinely unaware that their nominations are frivolous, and are an unnecessary waste of time of the other contributors who weigh in in those discussions.

One additional argument for early keep closures is that the early keep when the consensus is overwhelming in support of keep may be effective at cluing these sincere time-wasters into reaching a fuller understanding of our policies before making more nominations.

Secondly, when frivolous nominations are speedily kept, less time will be wasted reading those frivilous nomination. There will be less wasting of the time of others, who feel a need to respond to the nominations misconceptions. Geo Swan (talk) 23:51, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Proposed guidance on speedy keeps

OK, here's a try at it:

"As a general rule Deletion Requests should remain open at least until midnight on the sixth day after their nomination. Exceptions to this, which may be closed earlier, include:

• Requests that qualify for speedy deletion, unless

• the DR has been created because of a {{Speedy}} tag or
• the subject page has had a previous DR

• Requests that are obviously frivolous, malicious, or accidental
• Requests for minor housekeeping (i.e. deleting a Gallery that was supposed to be a Category)
• Requests where the nomination issue has been resolved by OTRS permission
• Third and subsequent requests for the same page for the same reason"

This may be a little too much, but I thought it better to include everything for starters.

I have used "at least until midnight UTC on the sixth day after their nomination" instead of "for seven days" because that is our current practice. Strictly speaking, "seven days" means 168 hours, not until the start of the seventh day. .     Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk to me) 14:48, 16 December 2012‎ (UTC)

• Looks reasonable, apart from Third and subsequent requests for the same page for the same reason. This is open to too much interpretation about "same reason"; and there are certainly examples where it took a few DRs for an issue to be properly discussed. If a third DR isn't frivolous, malicious or accidental, I think it's best left open. Rd232 (talk) 14:56, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
• Could there be some definition of how to interpret "frivolous" and "malicious"? Example issues: I could imagine a user being blitzed by 100 DRs in a week from the same reviewer and thinking that was malicious (which it might be); we see examples such as DRs being created to "clear the air" which might be seen by some as frivolous if it was obvious that neither the uploader, photographer or nominator thought there was any likelihood of deletion. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 15:17, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I think it's often better not to try too hard to define such terms, and let understanding of them evolve through practice. If there's much disagreement, clarification can be added later. Note too that James' proposal adopts my phrasing of obviously frivolous etc. Where it's not obvious, it shouldn't be done. Rd232 (talk) 00:01, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
• I don't think something like this is necessary. The rule is: Don't close DRs before 7 days are up. But of course you can IAR whenever you feel it is appropriate. No need to codify IAR. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure that citing an English Wikipedia policy (en:WP:IAR) which doesn't exist on Commons is much of an argument for not clarifying guidance on a page (Commons:Deletion requests) which technically is neither policy nor guideline. Rd232 (talk) 17:37, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
•  Oppose, unnecessary, agree with rationale by King of Hearts (talk · contribs), also, agree with analysis by INeverCry (talk · contribs), above. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 21:27, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Aha. +1 for citing English Wikipedia policy on Commons, eh. Rd232 (talk) 22:24, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
•  Oppose In regard to speedy keeps, I think we can rely on the judgement and discretion of administrators rather than creating rigid guidelines. I think admins can be trusted on this. If someone disagrees with a closure, the DR can be re-opened or the file can be sent to DR again. INeverCry 21:43, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
  • How does Exceptions to this, which may be closed earlier, include: [...] give the impression of being "rigid"? Rd232 (talk) 22:24, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
•  Support I'd be fine with all of this guidance being added. Another reason for early close is when the nominator withdraws. --99of9 (talk) 11:36, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

More Iranian weaponry image copyrights

In relation to Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive 39#Copyrights of Iranian weaponry images and Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems#Rablu1 (talk · contribs), I suspect all uploads by new users Shamgdawi (talk · contribs) and Raminyo (talk · contribs) are copyvios:

• File:Al spg 9.jpg by Shamgdawi, most likely taken from [10]

The following by Raminyo:

• File:Safir74.jpg, many web hits, here is one from 2005
• File:Tosan.jpg, possibly from [11]
• File:Saeqeh10.jpg, many web hits, one from 2007
• File:Shahab3.jpg, possibly from a news article from 2006
• File:Sejjil 2.jpg, many web hits, one from 2009
• File:13901201133811927 PhotoL.jpg, watermarked "FARS News agency / Hamed Jafernejad"

Could an admin check these? MKFI (talk) 15:41, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

One more: File:The spg 9.jpg by Doumaharid (talk · contribs) is taken from [12], and shows a similar contribution history in en-wiki as User:Shamgdawi, increasing infobox image size and editing the same articles. MKFI (talk) 15:50, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Time for checkuser. We also had other accounts recently. See e.g. User:The soso who added similar photos like the above mentioned. He also added a photo to en:Toophan, there we also had a hit-and-run copyvio uploader User:Thathgar (account creation on Commons, one file upload, one file inclusion edit in Wikipedia and recent copyvio article in that article.... thats 99% a copyvio sockpuppet account). For me it looks like the is a lot of sockpuppets involved here. --Martin H. (talk) 00:17, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Obvious case. Two users with sockpuppets:

The soso with

• Shamgdawi - 06:57, 17 December 2012 -- 07:01, 17 December 2012
• Doumaharid - 04:24, 17 December 2012 -- 04:31, 17 December 2012
• Dumshipal - 23:03, 14 December 2012 -- 23:04, 14 December 2012
• Fjeicjdej - 13:23, 14 December 2012
• Qasimahdwra - 13:18, 14 December 2012 -- 13:20, 14 December 2012
• The sirmcjfu - 12:56, 14 December 2012
• Jamahiriya haban - 12:37, 14 December 2012 -- 12:51, 14 December 2012
• Thathgar - 22:04, 7 December 2012 -- 22:05, 7 December 2012
• Tharyvr - 21:52, 7 December 2012
• Makoremusko - 13:58, 7 December 2012 -- 13:59, 7 December 2012
• Akarinahk - 12:05, 7 December 2012 -- 12:07, 7 December 2012
• Sakahalin - 10:54, 7 December 2012 -- 10:55, 7 December 2012
• Lkaria - 10:26, 7 December 2012 -- 10:30, 7 December 2012

User:Rablu1 with

• Raminyo - 14:38, 19 December 2012 -- 15:22, 19 December 2012

--Martin H. (talk) 00:46, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

restore 3 files

Hello, Please restore file:Sharon_Lipkind_third.jpg, file:Sharon_Lipkind_second.jpg and file:Sharon_Lipkind_first.jpg for I have received an OTRS approval for them. thanks Damzow (talk) 21:21, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Done --Denniss (talk) 23:50, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I've updated the files. Damzow (talk) 07:00, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Request for revdel

In the deletion discussion for File:Lincoln Park Zoo -entrance-10May2005.jpg, we've determined that the copyvio material can be adequately cropped out of the image, and this has been done. Could an admin revdel the prior version (uploaded 21 Dec '08) of this image to eliminate the copyvio version? Thanks, cmadler (talk) 02:23, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Rev del and DR closed as kept. INeverCry 02:33, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

User name is a URL

Is User:wwwsavant5mpeu an acceptable username, see www.savant.5mp.eu ? .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 12:59, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the acct should be blocked. INeverCry 18:59, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

CommonsDelinker

CommonsDelinker's last contribution was in November. See Special:Contributions/CommonsDelinker. How can we get it up and running again? --Sreejith K (talk) 19:30, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

We could ask the WMF officially for help ("this bot is essential for the work at Commons and its acceptance across projects" etc.). Then, they perhaps allow Siebrand and the other maintainers to spend a few minutes with maintenance of it during their working hours. Just an idea, not sure about it. Or we report a bug about the general issue. Or we do some canvassing at bugzilla:42582 which may change nothing.

With the instability of CommonsDelinker increasing, I expect more and more disturbances in the workings of CD and CDH. Bryan is almost completely out of the picture. Neither I nor Multichill still have a lot of time to look after CD[H], other than updating pywikipediabot code and kicking a process now and then.

— Siebrand

Current status:

It looks like the toolserver scheduler has issues now. :(

— Siebrand

-- Rillke^(q?) 19:56, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Maybe we (Commons admins) should try going on strike... no more deletions until CommonsDelinker is fixed! That might get their attention... :( Rd232 (talk) 20:39, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

No need to ask devs or WMF staff. Just email Bryan. :) Afaik he owns both CommonsDelinker bots. I send him a note on 10 December about CommonsDelinkerHelper and he replied yesterday: "Thanks for the note, I made some changes, let's hope that it is more stable now!". But apparantly that didn't help as that bot is also silent ... Perhaps someone should email him again and explain to him that CommonsDeLinker and CommonsDelinkerHelper is still silent? Bryan usually replies very quick. Trijnstel_talk 23:14, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I e-Mailed him one time about an API issue and got no response (at least there was nothing in the spam or inbox), same with Erik Zachte about special stats, so I let it. -- Rillke^(q?) 23:58, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Tbh I email Bryan very frequently; every time when the bot stops working I send him a note and he always replies, usually very quick. Trijnstel_talk 22:34, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

It runs! Great and good to know. Thx. -- Rillke^(q?) 23:12, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Is anyone else able to run delinker.py? --Leyo 13:10, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I thought you just started with pywikipedia? -- Rillke^(q?) 13:59, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

• It started working again, let's hope the next breakdown will be loong in the future. --Denniss (talk) 15:18, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
  • And crashed again, see http://toolserver.org/~delinker/helper.txt --Denniss (talk) 03:34, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

File moving: "Move & Replace" vs. "Move"

Dear administrators, dear file movers, due to the fact that lots of people aren't aware of the issues with moving files at Commons and therefore tend to ignore that we have Move & Replace, I suggest a change of the interface: Currently there are separate options "Move" and "Move & Replace". The latter one appears later, after page loading (because it's JavaScript) and is easily missed. It takes care about replacing a file name on other wikis, updating redirects and removing {{Rename}}. This is important because other wikis are suffering from bugzilla:42582. After you moved a file here, the file disappears in the article where it was used if you didn't care for it to be replaced or the article to be purged. I propose removing "Move & Replace" and adding its functionality to "Move". Only in rare cases, it is necessary to move a file using MediaWiki's default (e.g. if you like to use double whitespaces or an upper case file extension). This can be still achieved by using "&action=move" or "?action=move" in the URL, or by opening the "Move"-link in a new tab.

Removing the second option makes it more intuitive, removes UI clutter, and will likely prevent non-updated global usages. -- Rillke^(q?) 18:11, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree. See also: Commons talk:File renaming#Redirects --Timeshifter (talk) 03:23, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, good idea. --Avenue (talk) 11:42, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Makes sense. My only question is Currently there are separate options "Move" and "Move & Replace". The latter one appears later... Can you confirm that you can tie the "move & replace" functionality into the Move option without page loading causing any confusion (eg if you click Move really quickly, the behaviour is different?). Rd232 (talk) 11:14, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I'll see whether I can make the event-binding fast enough. In vector you have to open the drop-down anyway; Alt+⇧ Shift+M could be pressed very fast, though… -- Rillke^(q?) 14:33, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I support this. It's a good UI practice to make it harder for users to break things. Optimally redirects would work and we wouldn't need to worry about fixing usage in other wikis, but this is the reality currently. Not sure there's any need to bind the functionality to the "Move" button, though – couldn't we simply hide the "Move" button completely (for File namespace only, of course) and the "Move & Replace" button would appear as it does now? It's better to be explicit about what a button does to avoid people getting confused. Jafeluv (talk) 11:39, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Implemented. Comments are welcome, though I don't know how long it will take to implement suggestions. -- Rillke^(q?) 18:29, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Mass deletions by user:‎Timmietovenaar

Mass deletions, all individually listed, by a new user created today. Can we please have some eyeballs over these ASAP, as otherwise we're going to have a vast list of them to deal with.

All (AFAIK) are deletions of "portraits in new agency photos", and appear to be Soviet Union. The nominations are seemingly because they're associated with a Dutch open data project and their CC-by-sa licence is unacceptable to us. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:24, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

The nominations have merit. russavia (talk) 13:01, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Tim works at the National Archives and is in charge of the Open Culture Data project there. He got some heat because images that are not covered by the release ended up here. We did a pilot some years ago and now they release the images in the Anefo set for which they're sure they have the copyright. Only images that have an explicit release (example) can be used here. That might not be clear if you read this page. I'll ask Tim to update it. This will work out and we show that our process works.

I'm more worried about User:Denniss doing speedy closes at pages like Commons:Deletion requests/File:Abraham Charité 1952.jpg. Multichill (talk) 10:19, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Inactivity notice

This is to inform you that due to health issues I've been and am currently mostly inactive elsewhere, included here. Being sick is not a desired situation as you can imagine. Pursuant Commons:Administrators/De-adminship#Activity (permanent link) I express my wish to be exempted from inactivity checks. Although I expect to recover and return before, I'll set July 2013 as a intended return date. I'll try to make some editting from time to time, if situation allows, etc. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks and have yourself a Merry Christmas if you celebrate them. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 19:04, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I hope you recover soon and I wish you all the best for the new year. Feliz Navidad! --Túrelio (talk) 19:06, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear that you're having health problems. I hope you're better long before July. INeverCry 19:29, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Please get better soon. If it makes your mind any easier, you're safe from de-Admin through July, as you have many more than the required edits in the August 2012 - February 2013 period -- and, in any case, under these circumstances if you were de-Admined, you could have it back easily. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 11:50, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Get well soon Marco, hope all goes well for you. Speaking personally, I wouldn't be opposed to an exemption in this instance; forget about wiki stuff and concentrate on getting well. russavia (talk) 12:04, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

all the best. Rd232 (talk) 12:19, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Please check blocked user edits in Commons

Some accounts blockeds here [[13]], please check Commons edits--Motopark (talk) 15:41, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Already  handled by Herbythyme as it seems. Please report more socks if you see them. Thanks! Trijnstel_talk 19:46, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

File:Michal Goldberg Ayal.jpg

Please restore this file for I have the OTRS ticket for it. Thanks Damzow (talk) 06:42, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Done. --Denniss (talk) 20:55, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Weird

OK - I'm obviously being very stupid here. How can we have a file "created" by an IP that is in use on a number of projects but was deleted months ago because of non free licensing.... For those who are curious take a look at this file and its history/deletion history. Looking forward to hearing what I am missing on this one :) --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:42, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

It looks like the IP was able to restore the file by creating the page. I had one not long ago File:73 Pontiac Astre Hatchback.jpg that said the page didn't exist, yet had the photo and some file information on it. INeverCry had to re-delete the file to finally get rid of it. We hope (talk) 14:24, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

File was affected by the deletion bug. As there was no obvious reason for deleting the file, I have restored it. --Denniss (talk) 16:48, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

"Thank You for the Wikipedia Picture" spam?

This looks pretty spammy to me:

• 65.130.202.239 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
• 75.162.206.53 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
• 75.162.209.2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
• 75.169.5.71 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
• 75.169.27.34 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
• 71.219.46.200 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)
• ‎65.130.192.79 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · edit filter log · block user · block log)

Easily spotted via the list of recent user talk page edits made by anonymous users. —LX (talk, contribs) 15:47, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I had seen this earlier, but as it was only a few of these posts per day and because of the wording, it looked honest to me at first. But now, after going on for quite some time, it might be sort of link-spam. --Túrelio (talk) 17:13, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I had one,[14] I call it spam if the person/people concerned are not prepared to do this from a named account, be available to answer questions before spamming so many user pages, and explain what they are up to. --Fæ (talk) 17:18, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

We may assume good faith but message has too many links to this site and text is not always specific to images uploaded by the messaged user. If this continues I'd say add site to blacklist and good is. --Denniss (talk) 17:31, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Looks spammy to me from one message alone, just slightly disguised. In that volume, anonymously? Clearly spam. Rollback and blacklist, I say. Rd232 (talk) 18:10, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

IMHO the text is too long if its sole intention is to say "thank you" and "I am using your file x there". -- Rillke^(q?) 19:01, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I've added the the page to the blacklist but now users might have problems editing their talk pages and invited 71.219.46.200 to join this discussion. -- Rillke^(q?) 19:07, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Partly for info as some may be interested and partly because this is spamming, those with an interest may like to look here. The placement of 700+ links on major wiki is definitely an issue and is an attempt to use our projects. Personally I think the blacklisting should be re-instated here and probably applied globally. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:20, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh and 650 placements of the link here too which I think really do need removing personally. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:24, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

link --Herby ^{talk thyme} 12:24, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

The number of messages is pretty compelling of abuse of links, whether it be spam or not, it is not of value. FWIW I have set COIBot to report on the domain, and within the next hour, or so, we should have reports at m:User:COIBot/LinkReports/freeenglishsite.com, m:User:COIBot/Local/freeenglishsite.com and m:User:COIBot/XWiki/freeenglishsite.com.  — billinghurst sDrewth 13:26, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Username change

Good day to the administrator. I want to change my username from User:Shirou15 to User:Masahiro Naoi but i don't know what to do. Please help me regarding this. Thank you! --Shirou15 (talk) 01:33, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

not an admin, so forgive me for barging in. I just made a request myself. Commons:Changing username is i think the place.Mikereichold (talk) 02:12, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

User:Doktor Pronin

I would appreciate it if one of our Russian speaking colleagues would look at the contributions of User:Doktor Pronin. He has uploaded a great many files that appear to be copyvios, each with a talk page that says that he is the creator and grants a license, but I am not sure that the license is good enough for us, or if he is actually the creator. If he is the creator, is he actually notable, or is this just self promotion? And so forth.

I have already deleted many of his new pages that start with "Категория:", so he also needs to understand that Commons cats start with "Category:" and are in English. Thanks, .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 11:40, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

The email contact with him on the preceeding days gave me the impression that he is the owner of http://esse-online.com/ and that he might have the rights for the uploads. I asked him to forward evidence to OTRS, which he said to have done. (Whether the images with the omnipresent watermarks are in scope is different question.) --Túrelio (talk) 12:22, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Datei unbenennen

en: file:Zeche Deutschland.jpeg does not show the Deutschland mine (Zeche Deutschland), but the remains of the Haßlinghauser smeltery. It is possible to rename the picture to file:Haßlinghauser Hütte.jpg?
de: file:Zeche Deutschland.jpeg zeigt nicht die Zeche Deutschland, sondern die Reste der Haßlinghauser Hütte. Kann man das Bild in file:Haßlinghauser Hütte.jpg unbenennen? Morty (talk) 12:40, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Bist du dir da ganz sicher? Immerhin liegt die Datei unter diesem Namen und mit dieser Beschreibung seit 2005 auf WP bzw. Commons. Falls ja, dann korrigiere bitte erstmal die Beschreibung und dann kannst du einfach {{rename|<neuer Dateiname.ext>|wrong identification}} reinsetzen. --Túrelio (talk) 12:59, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Ja, bin ich. Seit 2005 habe auch ich dazulernen könnnen :-) Morty (talk) 14:00, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

--Túrelio (talk) 07:57, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Duplicate files - Help !

Hello,

There are 1163 files in the Category:Duplicate. Your help is welcome to empty this category maintenance and return to a normal state. Thank you! --M0tty (talk) 11:05, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I've been processing few of thoses duplicates lately, and only one remark, almost all are imported from Flickr ... --PierreSelim (talk) 18:09, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Foto equivocada

La fotografía File:Salinas Grandes.jpg dice que son las salinas Grandes de Córdoba, sin embargo es fácil comprobar en Google Earth que se trata de las salinas Grandes de Jujuy y Salta. Pido que le cambien el nombre. Saludos.--Nerêo (talk) 23:57, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Why aren't we using simple category redirects? #REDIRECT

Moved to Commons:Requests for comment/Hard category redirects REDIRECT --Timeshifter (talk) 09:24, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Category redirect links will be in italics

Moved to Commons:Requests for comment/Hard category redirects REDIRECT --Timeshifter (talk) 09:24, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Mistaken deletions/closes

I've accidentally deleted and closed about half of Commons:Deletion requests/2013/01/01. I thought I was doing the deletion requests from 12/26, but somehow I had got onto January 1's DRs. I pay attention mostly to the reasoning and voting, so I missed the date until I was already half-way thru. Most of these would probably have ended up being deleted, but if any need to be restored, please feel free to reverse my actions or let me know and I'll gladly do so. My apologies to the community. INeverCry 00:55, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Update: I've reversed the deletions and closes where further discussion is likely needed. I left the ones where speedy delete for copyvio seems ok, and the mass DRs for out of scope personal images: it would take a long time to restore these, and I think they'd end up being deleted anyways. INeverCry 01:37, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

URGENT!!!

Both the 'Robert Agostinelli' and the 'Rhone Group' pages have been sabotaged by a woman who has a personal vendetta against Mr. Agostinelli. Please revert the pages back to their stable version and remove the lock. Look at the sources and you will notice that this person is purposely trying to diminish a man unfairly. Please help to fix these pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.133.111.154 (talk • contribs) 02:35, 3. Jan. 2013‎ (UTC)

Hi Unknown, you are obviously talking about the article Robert Agostinelli on the english Wikipedia. Here you are at a completely different project. You should voice your complaints either on the talkpage for this article, which has been unused since November 2012, or here: en:Wikipedia:Contact us - Subjects. --Túrelio (talk) 08:19, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Removal of author name from file history

This is a revive of an older issue.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive_39 Alamo25 (talk) 10:33, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you both for your help. I have reuploaded the identical images over each as new versions. Can I please request an admin do a RevDel of the old images or just to remove my actual name (N.....e H....r) from the File History log. Thank you Alamo25 (talk) 10:04, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Best thing is to link to the discussion rather than copy and paste it. I've deleted the file in the file history and also revdel the diffs. If there are anymore files that need it, just email the links to me and I'll revdel the diffs. Bidgee (talk) 10:20, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Bidgee. Will know for next time. Much appreciated. Alamo25 (talk) 10:33, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposed Change of Rules

I propose that we change our rules to require users to be logged on, with an account that is at least three days old, before they can create a new page of any kind. This would be in line with WP:EN and follows our existing rule that users must be logged on before they can upload a file.

This would have two immediate effects. The larger one would be a reduction of Admin workload. We get approximately 100 new gallery pages every day, almost all spam, nonsense, articles, or other material that does not belong in a gallery. Almost all of them are from IP users. Some of them are serial offenders. Half a dozen Admins do most of the deletions.

The second effect would be that IP users could no longer nominate a page for deletion, since they could not create the DR sub-page. While we certainly get some valid DRs from IP users, it seems to me entirely reasonable that one should be required to sign his or her name -- albeit often a pseudonym -- to a DR. This would, of course, not prevent an IP user from commenting on an existing DR.

While I honor the policy that any user can edit Commons without having an account, simple edits can be undone by any user, or even a bot, so that wrongful edits are easy to fix. Once a page is created, it takes an Admin to delete it, and our workload is growing. We deleted 46,000 pages in the last month. That's up 50% from a year ago, when the tally was around 30,000.

Since page creation should be done by users who know what they're doing, it seems reasonable to restrict it to those who have at least a bare minimum of experience. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 19:16, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Since the timed text namespace is now "validated" by an abuse filter I would exclude this namespace. Also, IPs should be able to create deletion request sub pages (as we endorse trying using the deletion request instead of "legal methods") and perhaps even category-pages. Also users should be able to upload files immediately. As for the remaining pages/namespaces, I support this suggestion. Unfortunately there are sooo many stupid people out there so we will block some good contribs. What a pity. -- Rillke^(q?) 19:35, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Technically, we'd be taking away the createpage userright from usergroup All, and giving it to Users. That right is needed to create non-discussion pages (createtalk allows creation of talkpages, and All should keep that). There may be some workaround therefore where the "nominate for deletion" script puts the DR from IPs on the DR talkpage - that page can then be moved by almost anyone to where it should be. Not ideal, but that's one way to keep DRs from IPs, which seems our main concern. Rd232 (talk) 20:45, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

 Question Uploading files is not included in this suggestion, right? --Leyo 23:15, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

No, I think Rillke means the status quo should remain (you can't upload as IP, but can upload immediately if you get an account). upload is the userright which controls this, and Users have it. (Special:ListGroupRights is my source for this BTW.) Rd232 (talk) 23:22, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Does not uploading a new image require the creation of a page? -mattbuck (Talk) 01:39, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Even if it does, upload is already restricted to account holders. IPs cannot upload files. --99of9 (talk) 02:12, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Is this not also including people who have had accounts for less than 2 days? They can currently upload, but wouldn't be able to create the image page. -mattbuck (Talk) 02:20, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The Users usergroup has both the upload / createpage rights; they wouldn't be affected. IPs are members of group "all" and don't have upload and would additionally lose createpage. Browse Special:ListGroupRights a bit (Users is at the bottom for some reason). Rd232 (talk) 03:02, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I mean using an abuse filter to prevent everything except the cases I mentioned above (by me and of course talk pages should be also being allowed to created). This way we can also display a proper message and have all the actions logged so we can decide later to adjust the settings if required. -- Rillke^(q?) 08:42, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

 Support This sounds like a good idea. I delete 100+ of these spam/accidentally created galleries per week, so this may actually be a bigger problem than IP DRs, though those are of course an issue. INeverCry 21:17, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

 Full support as I'm one of the admins who delete those nonsense pages regularly. I spend so much time in doing this ... Trijnstel_talk 21:37, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

 Comment if the statement We get approximately 100 new gallery pages every day, almost all spam, nonsense, articles, or other material that does not belong in a gallery is correct then this move does make sense - we're hardly losing anything and saving work. There's some question about other namespaces (eg category:) and there's the DR issue (I suggested a possible workaround above). Unfortunately MediaWiki doesn't (AFAIK) allow per-namespace control of page creation, apart from distinguishing talk pages, which are controlled separately. Rd232 (talk) 23:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I checked the useful new pages created by anon users a while ago (a month or so) and I noticed 0 useful additions over 30 days... Trijnstel_talk 23:31, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

 Support as long as anons retain the ability to nominate things for deletion. --Carnildo (talk) 00:51, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

 Comment – [23], [24] – I'm leaving these hyperlinks here so visitors to this thread can see the pages and deletion discussions that anons create. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 01:17, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

•  Comment It's important to me that IPs can still directly nominate for DR. There are two scenarios where I think we need to keep this open (neither is PK related):

1) when the copyright holder comes across a copyvio we are hosting, I think it's important for them to be able to nominate for deletion instantly without signing up for an account. (Often this opens a discussion which leads to OTRS, but I don't want to put any barriers in their way if we are already proudly displaying their stolen goods.)

2) Some DRs on contentious images are opened by IP, and I suspect it's often account holders who would not like to be publicly associated with that content. I'd rather they do it this way than by making sockpuppet accounts.

--99of9 (talk) 02:08, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

•  Comment I'd also consider preserving the right of an IP to create a category page - they are often reasonable, and can be turned into redirects if the naming convention isn't followed. --99of9 (talk) 02:12, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
  • If we want this sort of fine control (at namespace level) we're talking about a MediaWiki change, rather than just a configuration edit. That stretches the time required potentially a lot (months/years rather than days/weeks), unless we're lucky enough to get the attention of a developer. That doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it, but there is that cost to consider, and maybe a decision about whether to wait for namespace-level control or go ahead without and use it later whenever it turns up. Rd232 (talk) 02:17, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
    • We could use abuse filter. -- Rillke^(q?) 08:44, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
      • I thought of that; I assumed it would be too much of a burden on the servers. If not, cool. Rd232 (talk) 10:14, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
        • I have started a filter for that at Special:AbuseFilter/105 (currently logging only and namespace 0 only). Let's see if it serves the purpose. --whym (talk) 12:41, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
          • Thanks. Log for Filter 105. Rd232 (talk) 13:38, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

 Oppose per a number of the above comments. The project I joined some years ago was intended as one that "anyone can edit". --Herby ^{talk thyme} 08:49, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

• • (i) ? "per a number of the above comments" doesn't make sense when nobody else has outright opposed (some, maybe most, want to be sure to retain IP DRs and maybe some other namespaces, but nobody's opposed stopping IPs from creating pages in mainspace, since this activity appears to have benefit of approximately zero, and a substantial cost. (ii) I thought "anyone can edit" was a Wikipedia thing. Does Commons have it too? Where? (iii) "anyone can edit" is a statement about who (amateurs) not how. Requiring a 30-second signup no more breaks that principle than failing to allow people who can't use the internet to edit by carrier pigeon messages does. Rd232 (talk) 10:14, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Herby, "anyone can edit" has limits. We don't allow IP users to upload images. Moving pages and deleting pages are even more restricted. WP:EN doesn't allow IP users to create new pages, so there is ample precedent for this. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 12:44, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

• Support This is a sound idea. Definitely support this. -Djsasso (talk) 15:15, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
•  Support I like this, seeing that most new galleries are just rubbish and take up a lot of administrators' time to delete. There is this one setting in the software that can restrict editing in a certain namespace to whoever has a certain right, but this setting can't be set to a specific group, i.e "Users". It has to be set to an existing right, or created and then assigned to the group. For example, if we wanted to restrict gallery creation to just "Users", we would have to define a new right in the setting and assign it to the "Users" group. If we are restricting this to autoconfirmed users, we can just set the right to autoconfirmed. Techman224^Talk 06:09, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Good idea, but that approach would prevent IPs editing existing galleries (in addition to preventing them creating new ones), which I don't think anyone wants to do. We'd need an equivalent to mw:Manual:$wgNamespaceProtection, :mw:Manual:$wgNamespaceCreation, to restrict creation by namespace. It's not that hard I guess, if the abusefilter approach doesn't work we could submit a bug and cross our fingers... Rd232 (talk) 10:28, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
•  Support as long as the available methods of requesting deletion (e.g. OTRS, asking at Help Desk) are communicated clearly to IP editors through the "Nominate for deletion" sidebar link (which perhaps should be renamed when displayed to them). --Avenue (talk) 11:18, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. IPs often create good categories and deletion requests. In addition, the commons is not supposed to be a project isolated from other Wikimedia projects. Its main purpose is to serve these projects. Proposed changes, especially "require users to be logged on, with an account that is at least three days old, before they can create a new page of any kind", would run contrary to this purpose. In fact, "three day requirement" would go well beyond even the restrictive enwiki. Ruslik (talk) 12:12, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
•  Oppose – Many of the pages that anons create aren't deleted. I would prefer it if anons continue to be allowed to create pages in any namespace except for the "MediaWiki" namespace, but if you decide to restrict them anywhere, then please only restrict them from creating pages in the mainspace. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:53, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
  • That's not a particularly helpful link (all pages created by anons in any namespace) - talk pages of all namespaces would certainly be excluded, and we seem fairly clear about wanting to either keep anon DRs, and possibly categories. Anyway, if the abusefilter option for targetting mainspace alone is feasible, that's probably the first choice. See log for mainspace page creations by anons. Rd232 (talk) 13:41, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I disagree -- it is a very useful link, it proves my point very neatly. Of the last 5,000 new pages kept from IP users, only five were in Gallery space. Several of the five probably should have been deleted as out of scope. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 14:07, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

•  Support On the proviso this is limited to "Gallery" space only. russavia (talk) 17:01, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
  • If you look thro new creations by IPs I think you will find that the usual most constructive ones are categories --Herby ^{talk thyme} 17:10, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I did, and that is absolutely true. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 18:34, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

• • • Right Herby, which is why I would only support this if it is limited to gallery page creations. Everything else should stay within "anyone can edit". russavia (talk) 21:55, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
•  Oppose IPs should be able to create categories and to open deletion requests. We should not give up the anyone can edit approach too easily. However, I do not mind if galleries can no longer created by IPs. --AFBorchert (talk) 22:12, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

 Question can someone familiar with the abuse filter comment on whether Filter 105 (currently logging only) is a viable way to prevent IPs creating mainspace pages only? If the load is not too great, then we can move forward with this fairly quickly, because there's clearly consensus for that. Other namespaces (particularly categories) can then be discussed separately, opinion being more divided about those. Rd232 (talk) 00:08, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

• Suggestion – I believe that the people who will be affected by this proposal (anons) should become involved in this discussion. We shouldn't pull the rug from under them without them knowing knowing about this discussion or having a say in it. Perhaps we should use MediaWiki:Sitenotice or MediaWiki:Anonnotice. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:01, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I think it should be more broadly publicized before being implemented, but not necessarily because of the effect on IP users. My strong impression -- not studied in detail -- is that the affected users will be almost entirely people with no other actions on Commons. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 14:34, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Has there been any progress on the publicizing this proposal? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 21:17, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

•  Comment Although I originally proposed a broad ban on creation of any page by new users, I see the merit of allowing them to continue to create DRs and categories, tempting as it might be to restrict DRs. Templates and other pages are not a problem. Therefore I'm happy to restrict this to Gallery pages. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 14:34, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
•  Support As somebody who used to work CAT:SD, I strongly support this proposal. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 22:28, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
•  Oppose - I see quite a few good deletion requests by IP's. Would be a real shame to miss out on those. Garion96 (talk) 00:04, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
•  Support The benefit seems to be greater than the potential problems. Yann (talk) 13:41, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
•  Support except for deletion requests and category namespace  Oppose. --  Docu  at 18:06, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

 Comment How about using the Titleblacklist instead of the Abusefilter? I think it would be faster and simpler. We can restrict page creation just on the gallery namespace while allowing editing, just like what we do with Editnotices, but just with page creation. It would probably require some additions to the code, as you can allow "autoconfirmed" users to create but not just all users, but I think that would be easy to add. Techman224^Talk 02:32, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I've added the "users" option in gerrit:40774. Techman224^Talk 05:46, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

•  Comment – Shouldn't this had been proposed at the Village Pump instead? --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 21:17, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

I proposed it here because Commons is a multilingual project and this is the closest thing we have to language-neutral territory. There are actually 42 different Village Pumps and we clearly don't want to have a discussion on all of them. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 12:27, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Alright. I understand now. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:42, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Move requested

File:It’s a flower day today..jpg – the name contains a right quote; better as plain ASCII quote? Peter coxhead (talk) 20:55, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

 Done :That's probably not enough to justify a move, but together with the double dots, it is. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 16:28, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Help needed

User:Interfase during last years regularly making changes/reverts of the files, which are uploaded by me. The thing is that the files were taken during my trips to Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and I've filled the description of the files according to the local sources. Azerbaijan claims that the whole territory of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is a part of Azerbaijan and according to the Azeri propaganda campaign, the activists are clearing all information which is not representing the position of the government of the Azerbaijan. Due this, some Azeri users, including Interfase making raids on the articles/images/videos etc. which represents the actual situation but what contradicts to the new informational policy of the Azerbaijan (renaming, changing, distortion of the all local names to new Azerbaijan names).

According to hereinafter, please protect uploaded by me files from such actions. Thanks in advance, --Ліонкінг ^{Lion King} 16:15, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

User Ліонкінг makes non-neutral edits. He remove information that the objects are situated de-jure in Azerbaijan. He remove Azerbaijani description of the objects situated there. He also changes the names of these objects. For example, the article about Azykh cave. As you see the main name of the cave is Azykh. But user Ліонкінг makes redirect from Azykh to Azokh. Is this correct? I don't think so. --Interfase (talk) 17:48, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Here he remove category, that this building is in Azerbaijan. But the Agdam, where this building is situated, is in Azerbaijan. That is destrucive. --Interfase (talk) 17:55, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Here he removes the information that this castle is known as Shahbulag, that it situated de-jure in Azerbaijan, and the category "Shahbulag Castle". --Interfase (talk) 17:55, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Here Ліонкінг removes the Azerbaijani description of the mosque, and the information that the mosque is de-jure in Azerbaijan. --Interfase (talk) 18:11, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Administrators must do something with this POV-pushing. There is no any Azerbaijani propaganda. The so called "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic" is unrecognized government. These territories is de-jure in Azerbaijan. So here we must give neutral information, that the objects situated there are also situated in Azerbaijan. And we must use the names that used in Wikipedia. Azykh, not Azokh, Shusha, not Shushi, etc. --Interfase (talk) 17:55, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

The same situation was on this file. Here user Ліонкінг also have removed the information that this castle is in Azerbaijan. But administrator Jameslwoodward let this information stay on description. But, as we see here, Ліонкінг didn't understand that and continues his non-neutral and destructive actions. --Interfase (talk) 18:41, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, here You can see, as Interfase makes changes in the file which I've uploaded - I've reverted his destructive edit. He reverted my edit and said that he is reverting vandalism.

Secondly, speaking about my "non-neutral edits" and his words that "we must give neutral information, that the objects situated there are also situated in Azerbaijan" - having a look on the downloaded by him images I've not found any file where he've mentioned anything that such place is situated in Nagorno-Karabakh Republic / Azerbaijan. In his files he wrote that this place is situated in Azerbaijan while in my files he wrote that the place is situated in Azerbaijan and in NKR. So Interfase better should keep quiet about his neutrality and my non-neutrality. At least I'm not pursuing uploaded by him files with making mass changes of the plot of description.

Thirdly, speaking that administrator make a changes in my edit just to stop edit wars, Interfase as always keeping quiet that administrator make changes in his edit also.

Finally, according to the policy of neutrality in case if some territory is claimed by another state (as with NKR) we must mention that the object is located in NKR de-facto and de-jure (according to the legislation of NKR) while he inserts only the position of Azerbaijan government which is grounds on the nationalism effort during the war. For example, Martakert city never has Azerbaijan population but when Azerbaijan army destroyed the whole city in 1992 they renamed it to Aghdara. Less than after the year, in 1993 self-defense forces liberated the city and the local population returned to their city. As a result during the whole history of the city it was named "Aghdara" only less that during one year (1992 - 1993) and it was never used by local population. Mentioning that the name of the city is Aghdara according to the "official position of Azerbaijan's government" is misleading because it is only the POV which is written on the paper. Very poor part of the population of Martakert knows that there were a short-period time during the control of the city by Azerbaijan Army it was called by them as "Aghdara". Wikipedia opposes to the censure, Wikipedia is not a judicial factbook, Wikipedia first of all represents the real information, not useless information which is sharing by biased government which grants to shoot down civil airplanes and where the hero is a person who in neutral state during the international program at the night murders a man asleep only because of his nationality.

Every year different biased users who wants to change description of the files which renders to the Nagorno Karabakh into official position of the Azerbaijan starting to make a massive edits in this files, a big amount of which are uploaded by me. According to this I ask the administrators to:

1. Prohibit mass edits and reverts in this files.
2. Prohibit mass pursuing of my contribution.
3. Allow make such changes only after discussion.
4. Make a protect on this files.
5. Ban users who violates this rules.

--Ліонкінг ^{Lion King} 18:19, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

If you guys want me to look at the problem, I will insist that you both stop editing "Karabakh" related files for the time being. LionKing, I haven't yet looked at all the links provided by both of you yet, but I did look at this. Can you explain why you removed the Azeri language description from the file? Please respond to this question, and this question only, then I will look at the rest of the issues that you both raise. russavia (talk) 02:12, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, I have looked at the various links. Using File:Ukhtasar018.JPG as our guide; LionKing it is unacceptable to remove Azeri language descriptions from files. We should be aiming for as many langage translations of descriptions as possible. I do not like how you have deleted the additions by Interfase to the Russian/Ukrainian/English descriptions; additions which denote that the subject of the photo is located in a disputed area. Interfase, your additions to this image descriptions are useful; they might be even more useful if for Nagorno-Karabakh related files you include in your Azeri description what is present in the English/Russian/Ukrainian description fields? Can you both comment on this, and then we can look at the other issues next. russavia (talk) 02:52, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Of course, I can explain my actions. Firstly, I want to mention that I'm the author of all this files. Secondly, according to our policy everybody can make edits in such files, but it's unacceptable when another user make massive destructive edits without any discussion with the author of this some 100 files. Thirdly, I've deleted the description in Azeri language because there were nothing mentioned about it's current location. Of course, all of us understands that Azerbaijan claims that territory but not mentioning of the current location is a misleading of the readers. If Interfase assume good faith we should firstly: discuss with me this question; secondly: keep such standards for his articles (he never mentions the current location - NKR); thirdly if he wanted to add Azeri description, he must first of all mention the current location, but he have not done it. More than that there're rude mistakes in his edits of Ukrainian description. He never tries to have discussion he only makes massive edit wars or when there are some another supporters from Azerbaijan - making claims about my (and other users with another of their POV) activity. Descriptions in many languages - it is good, but biased descriptions can't be a good behavior. --Ліонкінг ^{Lion King} 10:38, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, thanks for your answer. Firstly, please COM:MELLOW a little bit. I am well aware of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, and know it intimately, so I am also well aware of the positions of "each side" of editors in this dispute. If either editor disputes the description, add {{Fact disputed}} to the file page, and discuss issues on the talk page in a civilised fashion. Edit warring, accusing each other of bad faith actions, etc is not COM:MELLOW behaviour and will result in files being protected to force editors into discussion. Hopefully that will not be required. I will tell you now, that removing the Azeri description is unacceptable. If there were mistakes (as in spelling) for the Ukrainian description, then that is fine that you have fixed those. Also unacceptable is that you have removed the city being in Azerbaijan (de jure) from other the language descriptions. Both the de jure, and de facto, locations should be in the description of the file. In relation to the Azeri description, I would hope that Interfase will take my advice about including the same status to the Azeri description as a way out of such disputes. Also LionKing, I believe you are both acting according to what you think is right, so both need to AGF of each other here; this issue has been brought here because it is obvious that some outside input is needed, and here I am telling you both that you are both right and you are both wrong. The solution for such files is what I have stated above -- that being Nagorno-Karabakh files should have in the description both the de facto and de jure location information. I will await Interfase's response on the solution to files, then we can look at other issues such as categories, etc because I can imagine there are problems there too. Can you both please confirm that my suggested solution for file descriptions is a way forward, and that you will both put this into action russavia (talk) 11:03, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree that both the de jure, and de facto, locations should be in the description of the files. I mentione it with "/". But, in the name of the objects, settlements we must use the names (in categories also) used in many reliable sourses. For example, Azykh cave, not Azokh cave. Agdam, not Ukhtasar. --Interfase (talk) 14:59, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Great, would you be able to expand the Azeri description of File:Ukhtasar018.JPG as per the above. Then I'll take a look at the category issues you raise above. russavia (talk) 15:53, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

I see that LionKing has added to the Azeri description. Interfase, please confirm that the changes are inline with my suggestion above. Also, Interfase and LionKing, please both confirm that this is how you will both handle Nagorno-Karabakh files in future. russavia (talk) 10:23, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this version seems to me acceptable. --Interfase (talk) 13:55, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

OK great, so we'll expect the principles above to be applied by both on future files too. russavia (talk) 12:42, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

In relation to the categories, this might be harder, it might not (I hope not). The dispute is centred around whether they are in NKR or Azerbaijan. Could this dispute be settled by having Category:Buildings in Nagorno-Karabakh; which could then be further categorised under Category:Buildings in Azerbaijan. I suggest this because Nagorno-Karabakh described the region and doesn't favour Nagorno-Karabakh Republic or Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. Could this be a solution to that problem? Comments welcome. russavia (talk) 12:42, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

We could add Category:Buildings in Nagorno-Karabakh for the buildings situated in Nagorno-Karabakh region. But Agdam city is not in Nagorno (Highland) Karabakh region, but in Lowland Karabakh. And this region (Lowland Karabakh) is not whole controled by Armenian forces. --Interfase (talk) 17:41, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I think that it's not the best solution of the problem. Interfase is right that there're some parts of NKR which outsides the Nagorno Karabakh f.e. Agdam. Another example can be the parts of the territories of NKR which are a parts of Nagorno Karabakh, but they're under the control of Azerbaijan. I propose to use alternative categories as with description. F.e. Agdam according to NKR legislation is situated in Askeran district while according to Azerbaijan legislation in Agdam district. So we're mentioning both categories "Askeran district" and "Agdam district". Ліонкінг

Please tell me if I am correct here, or not. Agdam (city) is in Agdam (region), and the western half of the region is controlled by NKR forces and the eastern half by Azeri forces. Is the actual city (what is left of it) also divided in terms of control? I see from the relevant WP articles that the NKR forces use the city as a buffer zone. I am guessing the photo that LionKing took is in an area of Agdam (city) controlled by NKR forces? Perhaps it needs a category like "Buildings in areas outside of Nagorno-Karabakh controlled by NKR forces" (less clunky of course), because such things may be of interest to someone researching this area. This is in addition to the "Buildings in Azerbaijan" category. Can the two of you suggest a suitable category here? russavia (talk) 18:01, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I think Interfase means that Nagorno-Karabakh=Upper Karabakh, which is geographical area. Geagea (talk) 04:58, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Right. --Interfase (talk) 11:43, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

As I mentioned before there're no such official terms in NKR's Constitution and legislation as "buffer zone". Whole area of NKR has its divisions which consists of 7 districts and one city with special status (capital city) - there're no any buffer zones or zones of Mountainous / Lowland Karabakh. So we can't use a category "Buildings in areas outside of Nagorno-Karabakh controlled by NKR forces". Eastern part of Agdam region is still under the control of Azerbaijan and they have not renamed it just it's administration is situated in a village at the Azerbaijan-controlled part of the district. Other parts of the former Agdam district are under NKR's control. Southern part of Agdam district became a part of Martuni district (4), western and central (including Agdam city) became a part of Askeran district (3) and northern part became a part of Martakert district (2). Azerbaijan has it's own new administrative divisions. So in this case I propose to use "Buildings in Askeran district" (a part of category "Buildings in Republic of Mountainous Karabakh") and "Buildings in Agdam district" (a part of category "Buildings in Azerbaijan"). --Ліонкінг ^{Lion King} 18:26, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Interfase, does the Askeran and Agdam district categorisation sound like a solution to this? russavia (talk) 18:31, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay. --Interfase (talk) 16:22, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

 Question. Емишджан and Емишчан the same? Geagea (talk) 06:35, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes. These two articles are about the same village. --Interfase (talk) 11:43, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I also add rename to Category:Govheraga Mosque in Shusha for your consideration. Geagea (talk) 08:01, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

This category most be divided into two categories: this photo is about Ashaghi Govhar Agha Mosque. Another photos relate to Yukhari Govhar Agha Mosque. --Interfase (talk) 11:43, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay, so it seems we have our solution. For Nagorno-Karabakh files we use descriptions which denote both the de-jure Azeri and de-factor NKR descriptions in all languages, when possible. For categories we use both the de-jure Azeri and de-facto NKR categorisation system. I would encourage all editors to be mindful of this. We don't need to be NPOV in our descriptions, etc, but as a media repository we need to make files as descriptive as possible, and categorise them appropriately, so that re-users (both on and off WMF projects) are able to find and put these files to good use. If there's nothing else, I think we can close this off as resolved? russavia (talk) 18:02, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, we don't have our solution. It's the best example what we shouldn't to do. Here we've got a compromise what was confirmed by Interfase. According to this template I've made a part of edits, including this one. But yesterday Interfase decided to change his mind and in the file Azokh he made an edit with the comment that "main name is Azykh". Of course it's a position of Azerbaijan that the main name is Azykh. I can say that I've also a lot of claims, but if all of us starts speak about them we never can gain compromise. And the worst position is to make changes after having an agreement - such actions are unconstructive and inconsistent. Both of us have our views what is true but we can't make one step forward and two steps back. --Ліонкінг ^{Lion King} 17:22, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Ліонкінг, I never agreed that the name of the cave referred to as "Azokh (Azykh)". I agreed that it was stated both localization (de jure or de facto). As for the name of the cave, we must first indicate the name Azykh because it is found more and name Azokh less. And the article on Wikipedia called Azykh instead Azokh. --Interfase (talk) 16:10, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

You're wrong. Okay, I'll remind you of what we agreed.

1. Ліонкінг in the file Ukhtasar018.JPG mentioned both points of view, firstly the current location and secondly the position of Azerbaijan which is useless in NKR.
2. russavia asked Interfase if new version of article is acceptable for both parties.
3. Interfase confirmed compromise version.
4. russavia said that we'll expect the principles above to be applied by both on future files too.
5. Ліонкінг according to the acceptable to Interfase version and the recommendations of Russavia make similar edit in the file Azokh_Cave5.jpg.
6. Interfase unlike previous position has reverted my edit with words that "main name is Azykh".

So only after a week You start new claims to the questions which were solved already. It's unconstructive position. More than that You're with enthusiasm make massive edits in my files mentioning the position of Azerbaijan while in Your files You use only position of Azerbaijan nothing mentioning about real situation. You must decide if You're going to keep Your words, or You've agreed on a mutual compromise only for trade to new compromises into Your side from agreed compromise version. It's unaceptable to make new claims on the resolved questions. --Ліонкінг ^{Lion King} 17:58, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I want you guys to sort out the descriptions of such things yourselves, inline with the above. In terms of categories, you both have used the right idea -- simply use {{Category redirect}} for main variants of the names of cities, features, etc. It makes no sense to have 2 categories with exactly the same content...just use redirects as appropriate. The category name should match the article name on enwp -- in the event of there being no article, use common sense. russavia (talk) 17:22, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm strongly oppose using names on enwp. All names of cities and villages were uploaded to enwp by bot from official governmental Azeri web-site - that's why all names with exception of capital (Stepanakert) are used from the position of Azerbaijan. A lot of villages were destroyed and abandoned while a lot of new villages were founded (they're not mentioned in enwp). Most part of villages have different Karabakh and Azeri names. In this case enwp is one of the most unneutral in the question of NKR because Azeri users have a serious numerical advantage in enwp. Only one example.

Martakert and Martuni are the second and the third largest cities in Republic of Mountainous Karabakh. During the history of both of them they were cities with Armenian population. In both of them Azerbaijan SSR lost the control in late 80's (in USSR, it was not independent Azerbaijan). Martakert - a city with 12,000 inhabitants in 1992 was destroyed by Azerbaijan forces - all local population was escaped or being murdered by new owners. It was renamed by Azeri nationalists and was used new name - Aghdara only by Azery forces which were controlled the city for a year. In 1993 self-defense forces liberated their city and returned it's name - Martakert and today it has a population of 5,000 inhabitants. Martuni was never captured by Azerbaijani forces but it was also renamed to Khojavend. As all another names which were given by Azeri nationalists, nobody (or very few part of people) in Martakert knows that according to the legislation of Azerbaijan the new name of their city is Aghdere and in Martuni - new name is Khojavend. This names are useless and written only on a paper, they mislead the readers. That's why we can't use the names from enwp.

We should give objective information. And if during all history of the city it's name was Martakert we can't say that it is Khojavend only because a state without control the city have renamed it while in this city such name was never in use. --Ліонкінг ^{Lion King} 18:39, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Lionking, we are not Wikipedia, we are a media repository. Names of places can be addressed by using {{Category redirect}}. If we don't have an article on enwp; then this is where common sense comes in -- use google searches, for example, to ascertain where a category should be named, and use category redirects for alternative names. Work with other editors to reach consensus on such things, and please remember COM:MELLOW -- especially the part of leaving disputes from other projects on those projects, and recognising that Commons is a unique project with a specific purpose. If you all do this, you will be able to reach consensus on such things between yourselves. But creating two categories for the same topic is not the way to go about such things, that much I can tell you. russavia (talk) 18:56, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I want to remind You that not I've started mass edit wars - I've stopped them and wrote here for a help. Speaking about categories I agree with You that we shouldn't use two categories (with different names) for the same article. If we're going to use common sense using google searches - Ok.

Category:Martakert is a redirect.

Category:Aghdara is a main category.

Google search gives 166 000 Martakert vs 11 900 Aghdara (14 vs 1).

Google books gives 2 830 Martakert vs 59 Aghdara (48 vs 1).

Category:Martuni, Artsakh is a redirect.

Category:Khojavend (town) is a main category.

Google search gives 1 120 000 Martuni vs 118 000 Khojavend (9,5 vs 1).

Google books gives 8 720 Martuni vs 300 Khojavend (29 vs 1).

What is Your opinion including that I've written earlier? Do You think that current naming of this articles is a common sense? And speaking about Your words that "such things may be of interest to someone researching this area" do You agree that the situation with this two categories is misleading for readers and tourists? Thanks for the answers. --Ліонкінг ^{Lion King} 12:59, 7 January 2013 (UTC)